

The Healer Stones of Kapaemahu
5/1/2022 | 56m 45sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover the Hawaiian tradition of healing and gender diversity that is all but unknown.
On Honolulu's famous Waikiki Beach stand four large stones that represent a Hawaiian tradition of healing and gender diversity that is all but unknown to the millions of locals and tourists passing by. According to legend, the stones are a tribute to four mahu, people of dual male and female spirit, who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii and used their spiritual power to cure disease.
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Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Distributed nationally by American Public Television

The Healer Stones of Kapaemahu
5/1/2022 | 56m 45sVideo has Closed Captions
On Honolulu's famous Waikiki Beach stand four large stones that represent a Hawaiian tradition of healing and gender diversity that is all but unknown to the millions of locals and tourists passing by. According to legend, the stones are a tribute to four mahu, people of dual male and female spirit, who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii and used their spiritual power to cure disease.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -[ Chanting in Native Hawaiian ] [ Chanting continues ] [ Chanting continues ] [ Chanting ends ] ♪ ♪ ♪ [ People chanting in Native Hawaiian ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -[ Groaning ] ♪ -[ Coughs ] ♪ -[ Sighs ] -[ Coughs ] ♪ ♪ -[ Inhales deeply ] ♪ ♪ [ Bell chimes ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Insects chirping ] ♪ [ People chanting in Native Hawaiian ] ♪ -This is a very sacred spot where begin the story of Kapaemahu, Kinohi, Kahaloa, and Kapuni.
And behind me, you can see the sacred mountain where every peaks have the name of one of the healers.
[ Speaking Tahitian ] In 1992, Pakui Alua came here, and we are looking, "Where is the heiau on the healer Kapaemahu?"
This is a heiau, which I bring the rock on Oahu.
♪ -On my visit this morning to Tynah and his wife, I found with her a person who, although I was certain was a man, had great marks of effeminacy about him and who lived, observed the same ceremonies, and ate as the woman did.
In asking who he was, she, without any hesitation, told me he was a friend of hers and of a class of people common in Tahiti called Mahoo.
-Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii ruled in Honolulu, destined to become American territory, for Hawaii requested to be taken under the American flag.
On the day this occurred, the queen reviewed her native troops.
Through Honolulu passed the royal parade with flags of Spain and England blended into the Hawaiian emblem.
The queen, last of a long line of Polynesian rulers, signed the abdication that made Hawaii an American possession.
-Mr. Cleghorn discovered four or five very crude idols, two of which are now cemented on the top of the 10-ton rock.
Only those who are acquainted with Hawaiian idols would have recognized the almost-shapeless stones before which the ancient Hawaiians made their devotions and offerings.
-[ Singing in Native Hawaiian ] ♪ ♪ ♪ -They were unsexed by nature and their habits coincided with their feminine appearance, although manly in stature and bearing.
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -Ten-hut!
♪ ♪ -The cruiser Houston, with President Roosevelt aboard, arrives in Honolulu Harbor.
It's the first time a president in office has ever visited America's island outpost.
Hawaiians in outrigger canoes form a colorful escort for the gray warship.
On the dock, a battalion of United States marines, their band playing the well-known "Aloha 'Oe," comprised the president's guard of honor.
♪ ♪ -Ashore, the traditional welcome, the Hawaiian leis that greet every visitor, and then it's ho for Waikiki beach aboard a rolling trolley.
♪ The bluejackets just can't wait to enjoy the world-famous beach.
-"Wizard Stones to Go So Waikiki May Bowl."
About eight tons of rock worth its weight in Hawaiian historical significance are about to be removed to make way for an air-conditioned bowling alley.
-These stones should be preserved for their traditional value and in order to retain our individuality as a community.
If this is not done, Hawaii will lose its color, and we will be just another American community.
-The mana in the stones gets affected if it's not cared for and if it is not revered, and what happened to these boulders is, over time, their essence, the meaning that represented these boulders got lost.
♪ -"Aloha" means both "farewell" and "greetings," and Hawaii bids farewell to 40 years of frustration and failure in attempts to win statehood and joyously greets its new status as a full-fledged member of the Union.
-In hours less than the time between breakfast on the mainland and dinner in the islands, you'll find out for yourself the true meaning of aloha.
-In the sparkling sunshine of your first Hawaiian morning, Waikiki beach is just as you've always pictured it.
[ People singing in Native Hawaiian ] -The location of where the stones were is a prime piece of beachfront property in a -- in a place where a lot of people want to go to the beach, right in the middle of Waikiki.
Fortunately, the city and county of Honolulu realized in the 1950s that more open space was needed for people to access the sand and the ocean, so all that land was cleared.
That included where the bowling alley was located.
The removal of the bowling alley then brought the stones back to life, into the light, into the air.
That's when the stones were placed for the first time in a public location, and they received a plaque to identify what they were.
The information for what was on the plaque came from Mary Kawena Pukui.
She was a woman who was half-Hawaiian and half-American, haole, and she always had an absolute fascination with Hawaiian culture.
She had been documenting Hawaiian culture not only by writing it down, but also by making audiotape recordings with other Hawaiian people in which they spoke Hawaiian and they talked about Hawaiian subjects.
-[ Singing in Native Hawaiian ] -Four large rocks protruding through the sand at the recently restored section of Kuhio Beach were marked with a bronze plaque last week.
They were scarcely restored before vandals splashed them with red paint.
-Mary Kawena Pukui said that the word "Kapaemahu" means "the row of mahu."
So she's saying that these four stones, they represent four mahu.
Very straightforward.
-[ Singing in Native Hawaiian ] -Hawaii culture didn't look upon sex as a bad thing.
With the imposition of Christianity, a lot of that was suppressed, but a lot of those elements remained in Hawaiian culture.
So Mary Kawena Pukui, you know, she looked like a sweet, little, old lady.
She knew about sex, she wrote about it, and so, for her, there was nothing peculiar about saying the four healers were mahu, but everybody else, a lot of other people were not comfortable with it.
-"Sex Deviates Stalk Drunk Servicemen."
Female masqueraders in Honolulu coax drinks out of the unwary.
The military sees homosexuality as something that must be obliterated.
[ Applause ] -Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome here to The Glade Cocktail Show Lounge.
Starting off with the beautiful "Cheryl Moana Marie."
-♪ Back home she's waiting for me ♪ -It was during the Vietnam War, and the situation was we had a lot of military at that time coming in.
It wasn't an easy time, because you know that whenever you went out, you were gonna get into a fight.
The Hawaiian families are different on their take on mahus.
You know, they're a little more accepting than the foreigners.
When the people here started trying to become like the foreigners, that's when they took on the same prejudices that the foreigners did.
Before, we was mahu, but then we became faggots and queers and became the enemy.
[ Siren wailing ] You know, the queens, they used to have the -- the buttons.
They'd put it on their purse, the ones that you flip up, and when the cops go by, then they flip it down.
[ Chuckles ] The sign -- they hide it.
Cops come, put it up.
[ Chuckles ] You don't see other people go in the street and telling other people, "Oh, I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man."
Why did we have to go and tell, "I'm a boy.
I'm a boy."
For what reason?
♪ ♪ -As described by Madame Pele devotee Leatrice Ballesteros, the spirits are Kapaemahu, a healer and male, Kahaloa, a beneficent female, Kapuni, an evil male, and Kinohi, a female who brings blessings to homes.
-The police were not very helpful.
Were not.
They were not.
The minute someone died or got killed, they'd come to look for the queens, The Glades area, and ask questions.
And then the families would put in, you know, requests to find out -- never -- because they already said, "Well, you know, he was mahu.
He was a man."
Unfortunately, I have lived through so many girls who were killed, and cases -- terrible.
It was so horrific.
It was really a rough time at that time, but you get by, you know?
You just do.
That's all to it.
-My name is Henry Papa Auwae from Hawaii.
I come from a big island.
I'm the head of all our healers in the state of Hawaii.
-Papa Henry Auwae was the one that asked me, "You ever heard of Kapaemahu?"
and I said, "No, I'm, you know, not familiar with that," and so he gave me the whole history about it.
But more importantly at the time, what frustrated Papa was the fact that people had no idea what the significance were of these -- these pohaku.
People would be drying their towels on it, putting their surfboards on it, and just using it as a place to rest, and he wanted the mo'olelo behind that to -- to be revived.
Papa followed the old ways, and before we had the dedication, Papa called me.
It was about, oh, close to midnight that night.
I remember it distinctly because I went down by myself, and I met him where the pohaku were, and he said, "I've asked you here because you need to know that these stones have so much mana in it that many of our opio today are learning our language, and I'm afraid that they will try to draw out the mana that's in here, and I need for it to be safe forever.
So my task for you is to write and help me write a pule and a mele to -- to put a malu over the pohaku."
-Taking care of this area is really, really important work for the future.
They must be treated with the respect and dignity that they were given by our people hundreds of years ago.
I look at the story of way back when.
We were so blessed to have them, to leave their home in Tahiti to come to help us, and I share all the teachings that Papa Auwae shared with my daughter.
She will carry this for the next generation.
-They had the appearance of very, very handsome men with long, beautiful hair, anywhere from seven to eight feet tall.
[ People chanting in Native Hawaiian ] But they had the mannerisms of a very gentle soul.
It was just a gentle energy about them, and that's why they were able to heal on the scale that they healed.
In his words, those people were not berated.
They were celebrated because of their difference and because the general populous couldn't do the things and have the 'ike that these people had.
-Over the years, the so-called Wizard Stones of Waikiki have been mishandled, desecrated, or simply ignored.
Dedicated to healers from Tahiti centuries ago, the four huge rocks today have more proper resting places on Kuhio Beach.
A ceremony was held today to honor the sacred stones as well as those who worked for the past month to display them properly.
-[ Chanting in Native Hawaiian ] -The ceremony officially marked the completion of the platform for the four stones.
For years, they sat half-buried in the sand with nothing to suggest their historic and cultural significance.
-So I came her and looked at how they did it.
Somebody had their towels on, somebody was lying down on it [clears throat] and this is not good.
This is not proper.
[ All singing in Native Hawaiian ] -Each of us has the right to marry, bit we don't have the absolute right to marry anyone we want.
For example, I'm not allowed to marry my daughter or my son.
-I can't marry my sister or my brother.
-And I can't marry Kimo.
-And I can't marry my dog.
-This doesn't mean we don't have civil rights.
Don't open the door to weird marriages.
Don't let homosexuals force their values on the people of Hawaii.
Vote yes on the marriage amendment.
-[ Laughs ] -Mahu in Hawaiian society recognizes that in each person we have a Ku and a Hina.
We have a hard and a soft.
We have a male, and we have a female in each of us.
When we were made to feel ashamed of ourselves, biases from other powers and other world views became superimposed.
And so we were not allowed to recognize we have the duality within us.
So it screws us up.
It screws our thinking up.
-♪ I'm coming back to you ♪ -We have a world that needs healing, and how beautiful to have them in the middle of Waikiki.
They want to talk to people.
They want to be a part of our lives.
They came from far away to kokua.
I believe that they're still there.
♪ -[ Chanting in Native Hawaiian ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Distributed nationally by American Public Television