Kahōʻāliʻi

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Wailua River, Kauaʻi

In the mythology of Kauaʻi, Hawaii, Kahōʻāliʻi is a god sometimes associated with the underworld.

[edit] Ceremonies

On various ceremonial occasions, a dark man, naked, impersonated Kahōʻāliʻi. The man was marked with stripes or patches of white on the inner thighs. At the makahiki festival each winter, the eyeballs of a fish and that of a human victim were presented for him to swallow. When a heiau for human sacrifice was built, Kahōʻāliʻi was again impersonated by a naked man. When a heiau was being dedicated for the circumcision of a young chief, a night was set aside for Kahōʻāliʻi, during which anyone who left their house was killed. The priests who were looking for a victim to sacrifice were skilled at luring gullible persons out of their houses.

A walled heiau at Kawaipapa was dedicated to him. The heiau was sixty by eighty feet in size, and the walls were five feet wide and about four feet high. Two famous axes, Hau-mapu and ʻOlopū, were associated with Kahōʻāliʻi. The kahuna marked the 'ōhi'a lehua tree to be used to build a heiau for human sacrifice by touching the tree with both these axes before it could be cut down.