Kahu's Ghosts by Robert Hite

About the book

Though scoffed at today, the ancient Kahuna, or Hawaiian priests were capable of practicing magic. Through a strange coincidence in Kahu's Ghosts, a 74,000 word novel, this power, controlled by Kaeoku, a venerable kahuna, comes alive to dominate the life of Sam Westbrook, a young attorney arriving in Honolulu in 1914. It involves him in culture diversity, racial prejudice, the strange world of ancient Hawaiian magic, and bittersweet tragedy.

Intrigued with the Hawaiians and their culture, he becomes close to them against warnings that to do so is unacceptable. It leads him into a mystical, two dimensional life dominated and fostered by Kaeoku, who becomes his mentor. Introduced to the Rob MacKenzie family, he develops a close friendship to Rob and his wife Liz, a highly talented artist. He falls in love with their part Hawaiian adopted daughter Leah, and never recovers from her death after a calculated accident brought about by the priest. After Liz's death, her finest paintings disappear.

He later experiences visions of the times spent with Leah that seem actual and rational, which keeps his love for her alive until his death. Kaeoku tells him this is a gift through his own mana, or preternatural capability, but comes at a price. Kaeoku has placed a kapu, or constraint on Sam's family -- good will be rewarded with good, wrongdoing with punishment.

Sam becomes successful as an attorney and politician. He also becomes responsible for building a large hotel complex on the island of Hawaii on land he owns. Well known and respected as an authority on the Hawaiian culture, his lifetime efforts are toward finding means to eliminate the polarization existing between the Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians.

He marries Cassie Merrill, but is never close to her. One of their sons is an overly ambitious attorney, another a homosexual who murders his lover, and the third a daughter and physician.

At his death, he charges his son Roy to help his brother and to search out Liz MacKenzie's lost paintings -- paintings, he says, that would help in providing a bridge between the two cultures. This leaves Roy with problems of his own and an uncertainty regarding Sam's lifetime efforts.

About the author

Robert Hite is a Board member of The Friends of Iolani Palace, an organization charged with the operation of Iolani Palace, a museum once the last home of the Hawaiian Monarchy. He has also been one of its docents. His participation results from his years of interest in Hawaiian history and its native culture, initiated by his father, who had the same interests and was instrumental in the restoration of the throne room of Iolani Place.

Mr. Hite had a fiction piece and an article on kahuna published by Hyatt's Hawaii, a magazine at one time published by the Hyatt Hotel chain. He was also the featured speaker on the subject of kahuna at a National Hospital Administrators Conference once held in Hawaii.

He received his B.A. from Washington & Lee University in Virginia, and completed additional studies at Columbia University in New York. He is retired and lives with his wife in Honolulu, Hawaii.