Kū's Legacy
Spooked
Joe Punohu, a ghost tour guide in Waikiki, recounts a haunting experience during a tour when a self-proclaimed psychic claims a spirit deman
Key takeaways
- Spiritual encounters on ghost tours can blur the line between myth and memory.
Main topics
- Hawaiian spiritual beliefs
- Ghost tours as cultural storytelling
Notable quotes
"He learned that spirits aren't just stories. They're also history."
Conclusion
Joe's journey reveals how storytelling can become a sacred act, one th
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:08) I bit a bite of batter, but the batter bit me back. I bought it with some butter, then the batter did attack. The butter batter broke my breakfast biscuit platter, so I brought a bat and battled back, but that's just made it matter. Say, Speaker 1 (0:25) in Speaker 2 (0:41) many religious traditions, there's a story where the God says to a man, you there, take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Where you will climb a mountain, a mountain I will show you. And at the top of that mountain, this is what I want you to do. I want you to kill your beloved son there. Burn his body as a sacrifice to me, an offering to your Lord. And this man doesn't argue, doesn't beg or plead, no. The next morning, he rises early, gathers his son along with two servants, cuts the wood he's going to need for the fire, packs provisions onto his donkey, and they travel for three days. Three days. When they arrive at the mountain, he tells the servants, stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go up there. He straps the wood for the fire on his son's back for him to carry while he himself holds the knife. Speaker 2 (2:01) Father and son walk together up the mountain. The son, curious perhaps, asks his father, Father, we've got the fire. We've got the wood. Where is the sacrifice? Man says not to worry. The Lord will provide. At the top, the man arranges the altar, sets up the wood. Speaker 2 (2:31) He seizes his son, binds him. He places his only son on the altar. He reaches for his knife. He raises the blade high to slay his beloved boy. Then, right then, an angel says, stop. You have proven yourself. Do not kill your boy. There's a ram stuck over there in the bushes. Go and offer that up instead. God says, because you did this, because you offered your son, your only son to me, Speaker 2 (3:21) will multiply your children like the stars in the heavens, like the sand upon the shore. Your children will triumph over their enemies and through them all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Blessings beyond imagining. Blessings, blessings, blessings. Since I was a small child, reading it again recently, I realized I miss the most important part. The part they didn't bring up in services. That last part. Speaker 2 (4:00) The man walks up the mountain with his son, but even though the son is spared, he walks back down alone. In fact, there is never another mention of him speaking to his beloved son ever again and as a father with a beloved boy of my own. I don't know if the blessings of all the gods in all the worlds is worth the cost of what he left. Speaker 2 (5:48) He learned that spirits aren't just stories. They're also history. So in 2008, Joe started working as a ghost tour guide. He teamed up with a veteran guide named Uncle Joe who taught him the basics of Hawaiian protocol. How to talk to spirits. How to show them respect. They'd each drive a van, pick up their guests, gather everyone in a circle at the hotel lobby, and before they began, they'd give one final warning. This is your last chance to turn around. Speaker 2 (6:21) We're taking you to real places with real history where spirits still linger. If you don't like that, go back to your hotel now. Because once we start, we're not turning around. Speaker 2 (7:05) Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressive's Name Your Price tool for years now. With the Name Your Price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Speaker 1 (7:58) I had been doing the tours for maybe a month, maybe two. I was still kind of learning how to do it. I can remember this particular night, one month into the job, we had over 20 people on our tour with us. We had local Kama'aina military. We had tourists from other countries, tourists from the mainland. But one individual certainly stuck out. Speaker 1 (8:24) She kind of introduced herself to me as a psychic. She was short, she had black hair. She sounded like a local lady, but she said she was from Australia. Throughout the week, you get a lot of people who would come up claiming to be psychics. So I'm like, okay, you know, that's cool. If they think they're a psychic, then they can be a psychic. We started driving towards our first location at the Pali Lookout. It's a cliff on top of the Ko'ola Mountain Range. This was a battlefield back in the 1790s where the Big Island fought against the island of Oahu. And many, many warriors died in this land. We're pulling off the off-ramp to the Puli Lookout, and the blackness just engulfs us. Every time people ask, are we actually getting out of a van here? I'm like, this is a ghost tour. This is where we're going to get out, and we're going to walk. Speaker 1 (9:30) As we would get out, we would gather everybody in the front before we began. And as a protocol, we'd ask them for a moment of silence and we would turn around and look towards the Pali lookout and we would address the spirits there. And at this point, all the fun and the humor is out of our