Her mother was Kahakuhaʻakoi Wahinepio, sister of Boki and Kalanimoku and granddaughter of Aliʻi Nui, Kekaulike of Maui.

Her father was a son of Kamehameha I and his wife Peleuli, daughter of Kamanawa, one of the royal twins.

After his death in 1849 she remarried Levi Haʻalelea, a relative of Queen Kalama (wife of Kamehameha III) and had a son named William Pitt Kīnaʻu, who died young.

[17] She was foster mother of her nieces Abigail Maheha, Mary Ann Kiliwehi and Anna Kaiʻulani.

Her dress — evidently got up for the occasion — was a very transparent muslin shirt — through which those parts of her person which in most countries are covered were very visible.

A green crape shawl — and a band of red & yellow (the royal colours) round her head completed her costume.