Haunted Māhā‘ulepū

Away from the bustle of town, a wide, white strip of beach called Māhā‘ulepū is an important site in Hawaii’s history and culture. Against a backdrop of tide pools, lava tubes, and sand dunes lie important ecological, geographical, and historical finds, including petroglyphs, native plants, and fossils of endemic fauna.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, significant ideas about the human body were hotly contested and scientists looked to human remains for evidence to support theories that racial attributes could be measured and ranked on a grand scale of humankind. Medical doctors, anthropologists, and other scientists came to believe that perceived behavioral attributes of different peoples, such as intelligence and industriousness, could be directly correlated with physical characteristics, such as the size and shape of the skull. During that time, museums rushed to fill their rooms with native bones, many even paying “collectors” for the bones they found.

For a span of decades, gathering human skeletal remains was a common intellectual, cultural and social pursuit. Bones were often sent to museums unsolicited, while others were gathered with more systematic intent, carefully removed from cemeteries or other archaeological sites. The attempts to draw important ideas from their study eventually developed into an outright competition to fill bone rooms with rare specimens.

It is said that Valdemar Knudsen wished to send a box of Hawaiian skulls and bones to the Smithsonian. He first attempted to pick these bones from burial sites at Mānā but was turned away by the Hawaiians who lived there and cared for their ancestors’ remains. Knudsen said that the Hawaiians told him to take the bones from Māhā‘ulepū, for those bones are not their own. Those warriors had fallen in battle and they have no care for them.

As it turned out, the Hawaiians were right. The sands at Māhā‘ulepū were white with bones scattered across the beach. Skulls were plentiful, sticking out of the sand anywhere one looked, and just dusting away a few inches of sand revealed more. There are a few theories as to whom the bones belonged. Some, even Valdemar Knudsen, say they were told that the bones were those of Kamehameha’s warriors after a failed attempt to conquer Kauai. Others, like John Lydgate and John Stokes say that the timeline of this claim did not match historical facts and claim that the area was an old Hawaiian burial ground. Historian, Samuel Kamakau demonstrated that Kamehameha’s invasion fleet was, in fact, wrecked by a storm. Either way, by 1926, a few fragments of bones remained scattered across the sand, skulls and large bones now vacant. The bones of our ancestors, our iwi kupuna, were now in the hands of museums and private collectors.

The Fisherman

Māhā‘ulepū is also a popular spot for shore fishing with people camping overnight in hopes of catching a prized ulua. There are superstitions and precautions that every fisherman heeds; some are obviously for safety, and some are to guarantee a good catch.

Among these precautions are instructions to never sleep on the trail that runs to and from the shore. Some say it’s because it’s bad luck while others say that it’s just a common custom that everyone follows.

A young man who had planned a weekend stay arrived at the fishing area after working all day. He passed the time catching smaller fish for bait and sliding them down the long lines planted as close to the offshore channel as possible. With a final check of his lines and bells, he decided to settle in and sleep for a bit. The young man, who was too tired to clear out a space to lay his sleeping bag decided that the superstition was just that and curled up in his sleeping bag right in the middle of the flat trail to catch a late-night nap. He woke up to a nightmare just before dawn and felt aching pains throughout his body. When the sun finally rose, the young man saw that he had what looked like human bite marks all over his body, even in the most sensitive areas.

The older Hawaiians told him that he was sleeping on the path used by the night marchers, and this was the reason they say one should never sleep on the trails at Māhā‘ulepū. The young man swore he’d never fish overnight there again.

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