A powerful Hawaiian chief was buried in a field about a mile away from town. The stone thought to have marked the site was subsequently moved to the graveyard and in the 1920s people attributed healing powers to it. Thousands made pilgrimages there. A housing development and a Methodist church were later built, taking over the graveyard and leaving several stones sitting on the sidewalk. A small enclosure was constructed around them and a local Hindu group took over care of the objects, claiming a spiritual connection between Hawaiian and Indian beliefs. In 2010, the kahuna of the nearby Kukaniloko birthing stone site and his followers sought and received permission to move the stones to a more appropriate and natively Hawaiian place. At present the stones are ‘resting’, with no word of when or if they will be made available to the public again.
