In Hawaiian prose and chant, the term "Kahiki" is applied in reference to any land outside of Hawaii: the linguistic root is conclusively derived from Tahiti.
Scholars of Hawaiian lore including David Malo, Samuel M. Kamakau, John Papa ʻĪʻī, Solomon Peleioholani, Teuira Henry, and Stephen L. Desha support the notion that Pili and Pa'ao immigrated from the Society Islands of Samoa.
King Kalākaua, in his Legends and Myths of Hawai'i, theorized that the lineage of "Tahitian" chiefs and their aristocrats and priests descended from Samoa (i.e. Paʻao and Pilikaʻaiea).
Legends suggest that Paʻao introduced certain customs (such as human sacrifice, primary worship of the god Kū, red feathered girdles "Kāʻei", Kāʻeke drums and veneration of the bonito fish) to Hawaii.
After the overthrow by Pāʻao and Pili, Kapawā fled to the Island Kingdom of Maui where his royal relatives, through the ancient ʻUlu bloodlines, provided him with shelter and protection.
It wasn't until the time of King Kamehameha the Great, who was a direct descendant of Pili, that Hawai'i fully conquered the kingdom of Maui.
He continued collecting legends and when he died in 1854, he had completed an unpublished manuscript that was finally translated to English and published in 1898.
He lived on a distant island called Kahiki in the oldest versions, and identified as either Tahiti or Samoa by believers in the historicity of the narrative.
Paʻao was angry at his brother's persecution and in his anger, he killed his own son and ripped open the corpse's stomach, showing that there were no remnants of kapu fish or of fruit, in another version these partially digested foods were found.
They landed in Puna, where Paʻao built the stone temple platform, or heiau, of Aha-ula, or Red Mouth.
The last high priest, Hewahewa, who acquiesced to Christianity and the breaking of the kapus or ʻAi Noa in 1819, claimed descent from Paʻao.
Until fairly recently, Hawaiian historians relied primarily on recorded oral history and comparative linguistics and ethnology.
Then later, followed by migrations that originated from the E. Pacific i.e. Galapagos and Easter Island, which traversed a mostly submerged archipelago pathway leading directly into Tahiti.
These along with sugar cane, that originated in India, are among several Hawaiian crops that are now termed "canoe plants"; they were extremely important to voyaging way-finders i.e. Paʻao, who migrated to Hawaii.