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When Lopaka Kapanui was a child, he suffered from asthma and such severe kidney problems that he spent a lot of time in the hospital. During one lengthy hospitalization, a woman who introduced herself as his hanai grandmother visited him every afternoon. After he returned home and described the woman to his hanai parents, he was told she was indeed his hanai grandmother — but she had died prior to his hospitalization.
Kapanui has been receptive to spirits — “hearing and seeing things” ever since.
“Some (people) get the full signal, others just get sounds, and others are only able to feel things,” Kapanui explained. He describes himself as a storyteller, adding, “I’m beginning to think I’m a channeller.”
He is also the owner of Mysteries of Hawai‘i, leading tours — in person for groups of four, and virtually — that go to haunted places in Honolulu.
Kapanui has a “special virtual tour” experience planned for Halloween.
Speaking in general terms, Kapanui says that spirits are entities unwilling or unable to leave a place that was important to them in life. He emphasized that he conducts his tours with “the utmost respect” for the deceased people associated with the locations, and for the spirits whose presence some visitors may experience.
“The experience depends on them and what kind of energy they bring — what’s going on in their lives at the time. If I get a particular group of people who are of a certain type of energy and mindset, they’ll see all kinds of things and take really great pictures. Some nights it is just people who are just everyday people and nothing happens.”
While some might dismiss traditional beliefs in “spirits” as primitive superstitions, it does pose the question: If the universe is 13.82 billion years old, what existed before it? And what might there be beyond the limits of our senses?
Educator and musician Kimo Alama Keaulana grew up immersed in Hawaiian culture but found the stories he overheard about night marchers — huaka‘i o ka po — “very hard to believe.” Then one night he saw them.
“I was driving on Lowrey Avenue to my house in Manoa and headed in the direction of the Waioli Tea Room,” he recalled recently. “When I got to the intersection by the tearoom, I stopped to make sure that the intersection was clear. It most certainly was — I was the only car on the road. I just happened to look up to the mountains and I noticed fire up there.”
“As I was taking a closer look, I noticed more flames — torchlight flames. I immediately noticed the color — a hazy orange — I instantly recalled the description of night marcher torches being this color. I wanted to get a closer look, but I knew that if I was too close or detected, it was deadly! I turned off my headlights and drove into the parking lot of the Waioli Tea Room. From there I saw the torches — hundreds of them in an even line. They were making their way through the shrubbery to the ridge to get to the other side. I could almost make out some ghostly figures. They were dressed as they were hundreds of years ago in old Hawaii. You could see through their translucent bodies. Their feet didn’t touch the ground as they progressed up the mountain. I sat there in awe and didn’t move until the last of the torches disappeared over the ridge. From that experience on, I never doubted anything that I heard from any of the older Hawaiians!”
Hawaii-resident storyteller Jeff Gere has stories for all seasons, but since he was born on Oct. 31, Halloween has a special place in his heart.
“There’s something about spooky stories. We don’t want to live the experience, but we sure do love the stories that take us into the other side, that introduce us gently for a short period of time and intensely but just enough to let us know that the world is semi-permeable, that the spirits surround us, and sometimes they help us and sometimes they’re just a little weird.”
Gere has lived in Hawaii for more than 30 years, but when it comes to telling Hawaiian stories he describes himself as “a white man in a brown world.”
“I hear a lot of supernatural lore that is such a privilege (to hear). It’s like I am gifted with a glimpse into the world of another people and I always feel like I’m a guest (and) that I’m walking very delicately. And that it’s an honor and a privilege to be shared these experiences. I don’t take them for granted, and I certainly don’t feel I have the right to tell them without a great deal of respect.”
“I wasn’t born here, I don’t speak Hawaiian, so I’m like swimming in the shallows of the great ocean, and every now and then you go out far enough with your mask on, the reef falls away and you’re just on the tip of looking down into a huge cavern, the bottomless vast ocean, an expanse that you’ll never know. That’s the culture that I am privileged to be in the shallows of.”
Spooky Tales
Mysteries of Hawaii tours
Lopaka Kapanui runs the “Urban Legends Walking Tour” on Mondays, the “Night Marchers’ Walk Ghost Tour” on Wednesdays, “Ghosts of Old Honolulu” on Thursdays and Saturdays and “Waikiki Night Marchers” on Fridays. Check website for times and information on the virtual Halloween tour.
>> Cost: $40 a person for in-person tour
>> Info: mysteries-of-hawaii.com
Storytelling events
Listen to Jeff Gere go deep “in the shallows” of Hawaiian storytelling at 10:30 a.m. Monday as the lead-off artist for the Fall International Storyteller Series, by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Outreach College’s Statewide Cultural Extension Program. He’ll also be presenting at 7 p.m. Halloween night.
>> Cost: Free
>> Info: Register at outreach.hawaii.edu/SCEP.
Halloween gala
Gere will be an emcee as part of the National Storytelling Network’s three-night “HALLOwEEN GaLA!” Oct. 30 through Nov. 1.
>> Cost: Pay-what-you-can. Suggested donations, range from $15 for an individual performance to $100 for the weekend package, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
>> Info: Register at storynet.org/gala
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ON THE NET: Explore Gere’s massive collection of stories, ghostly and otherwise, at jeffgere.com.
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