Aleksander Peeter Karl Saebelmann (or Säbelmann) was born in 1845 in Audru in the district of Pärnu, the son of a teacher.

He befriended prominent figures from the Estonian national awakening, including Carl Robert Jakobson, Johann Voldemar Jannsen, and the latter's daughter, Lydia Koidula.

He took the name "Kunileid", in preference to the Germanic-seeming "Saebelmann", from Jakobson's motto Otsi, kuni leiad ("Seek, until you find").

Jakobson included Kunileid's works in his famous collection of Estonian songs, Wanemuine Kandle Healed (first edition 1869, second 1871).

In 1871, Kunileid moved with this brother, Friedrich Saebelmann, who had also graduated from the teacher's seminary in Valka, to Saint Petersburg.