► The Kahuna and Spiritual Mediums

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Friday,June 12, 1959 - Clarice B. Taylor's "Tales about Hawaii"

     "Did the Hawaiian know the secret of the medium - could he serve as an instrument for the manifestation of a supernatural agency? Could he materialize the dead?"

     This is one of the many questions asked of Daddy (David K.) Bray by haole "seekers of the truth" who want to know how the Hawaiian Kahuna unlocked the powers of the spiritual world.

     "Oh, yes," says Daddy Bray, they knew the powers of the medium and they knew the dangers of such powers.

     "Those who knew how to materialize the spirit were too often the Kahuna anaana, the sorceror. Too often he called upon the lower forces to bring back the material. Too often his actions camouflaged the God of Light."

SELECTED PERSON
     Daddy Bray then explains to the "seeker of the truth" that the gods of old Hawaii often selected particular persons to "possess" and speak through them.

     But, he says, it was often difficult to decide whether the "possessed" person was a rel medium of a true god or a charlaton.

     There are cases on record of good women honestly "possessed by one of the Hiiakas." These women were famous healers. They were told how to cure a patient during one of the seizures.

     There are other cases of a male Kahuna sitting beside his wife or sister who became possessed at a specific time each day.

     The possessed one would speak in a language not understood by other listeners. Only the Kahuna knew how to interpret the language.

TESTED
     "You can see," says Daddy Bray, "how easy it was to be a fraudulent medium. So the old Hawaiians devised many schemes to test the truth of such persons."

     "That is the chief trouble in dealing with mediums today. The good medium must be careful not to bring back some evil force. He must strive to manifest only the higher powers."

NEXT: The Hypnotist

► Paradise Gained and Lost - 1: Paliuli

Honolulu Star Bulletin. Tuesday, January 8, 1957 - Tales about Hawaii, Clarice B. Taylor  

     The birth of a child as an egg was a rather common thing in the days when the gods lived on earth and were begetting human beings to inhabit the Hawaiian Islands.

     The reason was that the first human beings were part divine and part human. They had supernatural qualities as granted them by their godly parents.

     Kepakailiula was born an egg in a family at the point Keaau in Puna.

     He was the first born of Hiwahiwa (the beloved one), called Hina, and her husband Ku.

     His name Ke-paka-ili-ula means "the person with a red skin."

     The family of Ku and Hina included grandparents and two brothers of Hina. The brothers were Kiinoho (the stay at home) and Kiihele (the traveler).

MANY DREAMS
     All Kiinoho did was to stay around the house and dream.

     His dreams were important because the family aumakua (gods) visited Kiinoho in his dreams and foretold events to come or guided the family actions.

     Kiihele, on the other hand, loved to be on the go. He could run around the Island of Hawaii in one day, starting from Puna before sunset of the same day.

     In the highlands above the family home at Keaau was located Paliuli, the paradise of the gods.

     No human being had ever seen Paliuli. The gods had built it for their private home, when they first came to live on earth.

HID BY MISTS
     They had located it in a grove of trees and hidden it with mists. The Moo (supernatural lizards) guarded the path to Paliuli with earthquakes.

     The gods who lived at Paliuli were fed and guarded by other gods in the form of birds.

     Mortals never saw these things but heard about the great lake of fish and the fine fruits which grew abundantly in Paliuli.

     The fame of Paliuli had spread throughout the Islands and it had been the ambition of many high-born chiefs from Kauai, Oahu and Maui to find Paliuli and woo the fabulous beauty who lived there.

     All had been turned back by the supernatural creatures who guarded Paliuli.

NEXT:  *Unavailable*

He Mana'o...
The written form of Hawaiian, of course not an indigenous development but a foreigner concept, was not written at that time with kahako and okina. Since the renaissance of Hawaiian language learning, Hawaiian scholars must have initiated the use of kahako and okina the help new learners and readers to accent Hawaiian words as close to how they should be pronounced...you must have noticed there are none in this writing. Another passing thought is that the computer wasn't around in 1957... owning a typewriter was a big deal for many of us... just thinking.