During the 19^th century the island of Hawaii went through a vast amount of foreign influence that came from traders and missionaries of Europe. Due to the influence and changes it brought about, many natives feared that their Hawaiian traditions would be lost. That is why Mary Wiggen Paiku translated the three folktales of Halaea, Koihala and Kohaikalani. She hoped that these folktales would live on to show the common theme of overthrowing unfit chiefs that only seemed to oppress their people. In the Halaea folktale, Halaea was this greedy chief who wanted nothing but to keep all the fish of the land to himself. Whenever his fishermen came back from fishing he would wait for them at the docks to remind them that whatever they had just caught belonged to him. Halaea threw feasts that wasted the majority of what was caught, leaving the fishermen and their families with nothing. Soon came about the “Ahi” fish season where once again the chief reminded his people that all the fish was his to keep. Halaea instructed them to leave the fish in his boat and so the fishermen followed his orders. However, these giant tuna fishes were too heavy for the small canoe Halaea was in and he quickly started to sink. The fishermen made no efforts to try and aid him, for obvious reasons, freeing themselves of his oppression by allowing him to drown. Another example of this common theme is seen in the Koihala tale, in this tale the chief was very indecisive and kept his people on a limb for the majority of the story. Koihala spent most of his time out at sea in the tale and made his people deliver food to very far apart locations for him. This angered the people since they grew tired of going to such extents for a chief who did nothing but sit in his canoe. At a certain point they threatened to eat the food themselves if he did not land and so they tricked him into coming in. When the chief finally did they took hold of the hidden stones they kept wrapped in leaves and killed Koihala.

Both these tales established, illustrated and preserved how the Hawaiian people handled wrong forms of government. It showed how a weak support like that of chief Koihala and large oppression like that of chief Halaea would not stand by the people. It shows how the Hawaiian natives valued their rights and they would eventually do what was necessary to receive them. These folktales could even compared to the French revolution and how they took matters into their own hands after being oppressed by the king for so long. As well as the Navajo ceremonies and how the Native Americans came together as one to achieve a common goal.