Kapaemahu

Kapaemahu[a] refers to four stones on Waikīkī Beach that were placed there as tribute to four legendary mahu[a] (third-gender individuals) who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi centuries ago.

"[13] 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.

[1] 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.

[1] 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 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.

[1] 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.”[4] The first printed mention of the stones occurred in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in 1905.

[19] Some Hawaiian traditionalists were irate that the boulders were initially placed next to water and sewer pipes, and used by some beachgoers as a towel rack and sunbathing spot, but they were soon given a more prominent position marked by an historical plaque.

A bronze plaque, mounted on a small stone from Kaimuki, remarks briefly on the duality of male and female spirit of the healers and provides a QR code for Kapaemahu.info,[24] which includes an augmented reality guided tour of the monument.

However, when the stones were first recovered on Kuhio Beach in 1963, during a period of legal discrimination against mahu,[30] the accompanying historical plaque and newspaper article made no mention of the healers' gender.

[18] A 1980 newspaper article cited Leatrice Ballesteros, a Filipino fortune teller and “Madame Pele devotee”, describing the stones as representing the spirits of two males and two females.

[33] In an effort to restore the stones of Kapaemahu as a permanent reminder of this aspect of Hawaiian history, the original manuscript of the moolelo was used as the basis for an animated film depicting the contributions of the four mahu to healing and the subsequent suppression of their story.