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Kapaemahu
Kapaemahu refers to four stones on Waikīkī Beach that were placed there as tribute to four legendary mahu (third-gender individuals) who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi centuries ago. It is also the name of the leader of the healers, who according to tradition, transferred their spiritual power to the stones before they vanished. The stones are currently located inside a City and County of Honolulu monument in Honolulu at the western end of Kuhio Beach Park, close to their original home in the section of Waikiki known as Ulukou. Kapaemahu is considered significant as a cultural monument in Waikiki, an example of sacred stones in Hawaiʻi, an insight into indigenous understandings of gender and healing and the subject of an animated film and documentary film.
The tradition of Kapaemahu, like all pre-contact Hawaiian knowledge, was orally transmitted. The first written account of the story is attributed to James Harbottle Boyd, and was published by Thomas G. Thrum under the title “Tradition of the Wizard Stones Ka-Pae-Mahu” in the Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for 1907, and reprinted in 1923 under the title “The Wizard Stones of Ka-Pae-Mahu” in More Hawaiian Folk Tales. The Hawaiian name for the stones, described in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, is "Ka Pohaku Kahuna Kapaemahu."
The story begins with the journey of four mystical figures, identified as “wizards or soothsayers,” from “the land of Moaulanuiakea (Tahiti)... to Hawaii long before the reign of King Kakuhihewa.” Their names were Kapaemahu, who was the leader, Kinohi, Kahaloa, and Kapuni. After touring the islands of Hawaii, they settled at Ulukou in Waikiki.
According to the moolelo, the visitors were “unsexed by nature, and their habits coincided with their feminine appearance although manly in stature and bearing,” indicating that they were mahu – a Polynesian term for third gender individuals who are neither male nor female but a mixture of both in mind, heart, and spirit. They were also described as having “courteous ways and kindly manners”' and “low, soft speech.” The “quartette of favorites of the gods” were adept in the science of healing. They effected many cures by the “laying on of hands,” and became famous across O'ahu.
When it came time for the healers to depart, there was a desire to construct a “most permanent reminder” so that “those who might come after could see the appreciation of those who had been succored and relieved of pain and suffering by their ministrations during their sojourn among them." The four mahu "gave their decision to the people as a voice from the gods."
On the night of Kāne, the people gathered near a famous “bell rock” in Kaimuki and selected four giant boulders which were moved to Waikiki. Two were placed in the ground near their living place and two in the sea at their bathing place. Kapaemahu began a series of ceremonies and chants to embed the healers' powers within the stones, burying idols indicating the dual male and female spirit of the healers under each one. The legend also states that “sacrifice was offered of a lovely, virtuous chiefess,” and that the “incantations, prayers and fasting lasted one full moon.” Once their spiritual powers had been transferred to the stones, the four mahu vanished, and were never seen again.
The stones are thought to have remained at Waikiki from before the time of Kakuhihewa, the 16th century Alii Aimoku of Oahu, to the modern era, two on the stretch of beach now known as Kahaloa, and two in the ocean at the surf spot called Kapuni. There they served as both a sacred site for healing and a marker for a dangerous section of the outer reef known as the “Cave of the Shark God.”
The first printed mention of the stones occurred in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in 1905. The article described how Archibald Scott Cleghorn, a Scottish-born businessman who married Princess Likelike and fathered Princess Kaʻiulani, had for two decades noticed a stone outcropping on their beach property that he thought might have religious significance. The stone was located near Likelike's customary bathing spot, and she and her daughter placed seaweed lei on it before bathing in the ocean.
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Kapaemahu
Kapaemahu refers to four stones on Waikīkī Beach that were placed there as tribute to four legendary mahu (third-gender individuals) who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi centuries ago. It is also the name of the leader of the healers, who according to tradition, transferred their spiritual power to the stones before they vanished. The stones are currently located inside a City and County of Honolulu monument in Honolulu at the western end of Kuhio Beach Park, close to their original home in the section of Waikiki known as Ulukou. Kapaemahu is considered significant as a cultural monument in Waikiki, an example of sacred stones in Hawaiʻi, an insight into indigenous understandings of gender and healing and the subject of an animated film and documentary film.
The tradition of Kapaemahu, like all pre-contact Hawaiian knowledge, was orally transmitted. The first written account of the story is attributed to James Harbottle Boyd, and was published by Thomas G. Thrum under the title “Tradition of the Wizard Stones Ka-Pae-Mahu” in the Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for 1907, and reprinted in 1923 under the title “The Wizard Stones of Ka-Pae-Mahu” in More Hawaiian Folk Tales. The Hawaiian name for the stones, described in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, is "Ka Pohaku Kahuna Kapaemahu."
The story begins with the journey of four mystical figures, identified as “wizards or soothsayers,” from “the land of Moaulanuiakea (Tahiti)... to Hawaii long before the reign of King Kakuhihewa.” Their names were Kapaemahu, who was the leader, Kinohi, Kahaloa, and Kapuni. After touring the islands of Hawaii, they settled at Ulukou in Waikiki.
According to the moolelo, the visitors were “unsexed by nature, and their habits coincided with their feminine appearance although manly in stature and bearing,” indicating that they were mahu – a Polynesian term for third gender individuals who are neither male nor female but a mixture of both in mind, heart, and spirit. They were also described as having “courteous ways and kindly manners”' and “low, soft speech.” The “quartette of favorites of the gods” were adept in the science of healing. They effected many cures by the “laying on of hands,” and became famous across O'ahu.
When it came time for the healers to depart, there was a desire to construct a “most permanent reminder” so that “those who might come after could see the appreciation of those who had been succored and relieved of pain and suffering by their ministrations during their sojourn among them." The four mahu "gave their decision to the people as a voice from the gods."
On the night of Kāne, the people gathered near a famous “bell rock” in Kaimuki and selected four giant boulders which were moved to Waikiki. Two were placed in the ground near their living place and two in the sea at their bathing place. Kapaemahu began a series of ceremonies and chants to embed the healers' powers within the stones, burying idols indicating the dual male and female spirit of the healers under each one. The legend also states that “sacrifice was offered of a lovely, virtuous chiefess,” and that the “incantations, prayers and fasting lasted one full moon.” Once their spiritual powers had been transferred to the stones, the four mahu vanished, and were never seen again.
The stones are thought to have remained at Waikiki from before the time of Kakuhihewa, the 16th century Alii Aimoku of Oahu, to the modern era, two on the stretch of beach now known as Kahaloa, and two in the ocean at the surf spot called Kapuni. There they served as both a sacred site for healing and a marker for a dangerous section of the outer reef known as the “Cave of the Shark God.”
The first printed mention of the stones occurred in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in 1905. The article described how Archibald Scott Cleghorn, a Scottish-born businessman who married Princess Likelike and fathered Princess Kaʻiulani, had for two decades noticed a stone outcropping on their beach property that he thought might have religious significance. The stone was located near Likelike's customary bathing spot, and she and her daughter placed seaweed lei on it before bathing in the ocean.