[1] She was the favorite wife of Prime Minister Kalanimoku, a powerful chief and statesman during the early years of the Hawaiian monarchy, and she would accompany him on his interactions with visiting Western explorers and American missionaries to Hawaii.

In August that year, the French corvette Uranie under Captain Louis de Freycinet visited the Hawaiian Islands during its circumnavigation expedition.

Because of the ʻai kapu (taboo) which prohibited men and women from eating meals together, Likelike was not allowed to dine at the same table with Kalanimoku and the captain, as well as others.

[9] On August 14, Kalanimoku was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith by ship chaplain Abbé de Quélen while anchored off of Lāhainā, Maui, then the capital of Hawaii.

[10][11] J. Alphonse Pellion, an artist aboard the Uranie, made several engraving sketches of the Hawaiians who visited the ship, including one of Likelike titled Rikériki, femme du chef Kraïmokou (above).

"[11] After the arrival of the American Protestant missionaries in 1820, Kalanimoku allowed Reverend Elisha Loomis to set up a mission school in Kawaihae on the island of Hawaii where Likelike became a student of the new faith.

In their descriptions of the incident, the American missionaries blamed the common people for being overzealous in setting off the cannon salutes, which was a popular custom adopted after the introduction of western firearms to the islands.

For four nights in succession, at her earnest solicitation, her friends had carried her out and immersed her, to cool the burning fever, with the hope of prolonging her life till her husband should arrive.

Boki, who had called us to sit near her, finding that her breath had ceased, and every sign of life was gone, turned his face upwards, and set up the loud heathen wail, which soon became general and deafening, from a multitude of voices.

We retired from the crowd, while some stood wringing their hands in anguish, crying with loud and lamentable tones and cadences, while floods of tears ran down their swarthy faces.

Her funeral, which took place over several days, featured the traditional Hawaiian funerary practices including wailing, hula dancing, and mourners shaving their hair in grief.