On a lava-rock shoreline on Hawaiʻi Island, six wooden figures stand taller than a person, their carved faces turned toward the sea. Visitors often call them "tikis." The people who still carve them, and the park that cares for them, call them something else: kiʻi.
The short answer
A kiʻi is a carved image representing an akua (deity) or a venerated ancestor in Hawaiian tradition — not a decorative "tiki." The word "tiki" comes from a different Polynesian language family and, in America, from 1930s tiki-bar culture; it was never the Hawaiian word for these sacred figures.
What does kiʻi actually mean?
In the Hawaiian language, kiʻi simply means "image," "statue," or "likeness." Mary Kawena Pukuʻi's Hawaiian dictionary defines it that way, and in daily use it can refer to a photograph as easily as a carving. But in the context of Hawaiian religious practice, a kiʻi is something more specific: a physical form made to hold and channel the presence of an akua, or of an ancestor whose spirit still watched over the living. Carvers worked mostly in wood, though kiʻi were also made from stone (pōhaku), sea urchin spines, and feathers. Each material and each face carried meaning that a casual visitor would never guess from the outside.
Who do the kiʻi represent, and why were they carved?
Hawaiian religion centered on a pantheon of akua, with four gods most widely honored across the islands: Kāne, associated with life, fresh water, and creation; Kanaloa, god of the ocean and long-distance voyaging; Kū, linked to governance, war, and productive labor; and Lono, god of agriculture, rainfall, healing, and peace. A kiʻi gave a specific akua, or a family's own ʻaumākua (ancestor guardians), a place to reside during ceremony. The carving was never meant as portraiture or decoration. It was a vessel, built with intention, placed with intention, and approached accordingly.
What is Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau, and why does it hold so many kiʻi?
On the Kona coast of Hawaiʻi Island sits Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau, known in English as the Place of Refuge. For more than seven centuries, it served a specific purpose under the old religious law code, the kapu system. Breaking a kapu — looking directly at a high chief, letting a shadow fall on sacred ground, eating a food reserved for men — was a capital offense, because Hawaiians believed an unpunished violation could bring the gods' anger down on everyone as eruption, tsunami, or famine. But a lawbreaker who reached a puʻuhonua before being caught was safe. Pursuers had to stop at its boundary, since no blood could be shed there, and a priest performed a ceremony of absolution so the person could go home forgiven.
The refuge was separated from the royal grounds by the Great Wall, a dry-stacked lava rock wall built around 1550, roughly 1,000 feet long and 12 feet high. Inside the royal grounds stands Hale o Keawe, a temple built around 1650 that served as a mausoleum for the bones of twenty-three aliʻi, or chiefs. Hawaiians believed those bones carried mana, spiritual power strong enough to protect the entire village below it. The kiʻi that line Hale o Keawe today represent Lono, Kāne, Kanaloa, and family ʻaumākua connected to this place. They are not the originals; wood weathers, and the figures are periodically replaced by local carvers working from family knowledge passed down since a 1960s restoration, some of them descendants of the original carvers themselves.
A kiʻi was never meant as portraiture. It was a vessel, built with intention, placed with intention.
Where did the word "tiki" actually come from?
Here is where a lot of gift-shop signage gets it wrong. "Tiki" is not a Hawaiian word. Similar words do exist across Polynesian languages for "image" or "carved ancestor figure" — tiki in Māori and Tahitian, kiʻi in Hawaiian — but each culture carved its own figures, for its own gods, under its own protocols. The American "tiki" aesthetic has a separate, far more recent history. Don the Beachcomber, widely credited as the first American tiki bar, opened in Hollywood in 1934, though "tiki bar" itself didn't catch on as a phrase until the 1950s. A 1935 pseudo-documentary called Hei Tiki and Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki raft expedition both helped push the word into American vocabulary, usually stripped of any single cultural source. What followed was a commercialized, pan-tropical style — blending Hawaiian, Māori, and other Pacific imagery into one invented aesthetic for restaurants and bars — that has little to do with any actual Polynesian tradition, Hawaiian kiʻi included.
How were kiʻi traditionally made?
Wood was the primary material, shaped by carvers trained within their own families, often over generations. The restoration of Hale o Keawe in the 1960s drew on exactly that inherited knowledge: the National Park Service worked with scholars and local carvers, several of whom were already park employees carrying skill passed down in their own families, and that arrangement continues today. Because the kiʻi stand outdoors in sun, salt air, and rain, wood figures eventually deteriorate and must be replaced, which means the row a visitor sees now was likely carved within the last few decades — a living, maintained tradition rather than a museum relic, even on a site that is centuries old.
Can you still see authentic kiʻi today?
Yes. Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park is open to visitors on Hawaiʻi Island, and the Great Wall, Hale o Keawe, and its kiʻi are the centerpiece of the site. After Kamehameha I died in 1819, his heir Liholiho and the powerful chiefess Kaʻahumanu formally abolished the kapu system, and much of the religious infrastructure built around it was dismantled or left to decay across the islands in the years that followed. Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau is one of the places where that history was not erased. The National Park Service stabilized and restored the Great Wall and Hale o Keawe beginning in the 1960s, working directly with Hawaiian families to keep the kiʻi tradition accurate rather than inventing a replacement. If you want to understand what a kiʻi actually is, rather than what a roadside gift shop calls one, this is the place to start.
How should a visitor treat kiʻi and other Hawaiian sacred carvings?
Quietly, and without touching. These are not photo props in the sense a theme park statue is; they represent something a great many Hawaiian families still consider sacred, and the site itself is a cemetery as much as a monument. If you are drawn to the artistry of Hawaiian carving and want to bring a piece of it home, look for work made in the islands, by artists who can speak to the symbolism in their own pieces, rather than mass-produced "tiki" decor shipped in from elsewhere. Our own Hawaiian art and kākau-inspired designs and mythology-rooted pieces are made with exactly that distinction in mind — honoring the symbols rather than flattening them into generic tropical decor.
Keep reading from the journal
- The Four Great Gods of Hawaiʻi
- Kiʻi Pōhaku: The Meaning of Hawaiian Petroglyphs
- Hawaiian Mythology: Gods, Guardians & the Stories of the Islands
- Traditional Hawaiian Art Explained: Kapa, Kākau & the Symbols Behind the Designs
- Kākau Art: The Meaning Behind Hawaiian Tattoo Designs
Is "tiki" an offensive word to use?
It depends on context. "Tiki" isn't a slur, but using it as a catch-all label for any Pacific Islander carved figure — including a Hawaiian kiʻi — erases real cultural and religious distinctions between island nations. Using the correct name, kiʻi, for a Hawaiian carving is a small, easy way to show that distinction matters.
What does kiʻi mean in Hawaiian?
Kiʻi means "image," "statue," or "likeness" in everyday Hawaiian. In a religious context, it specifically refers to a carved figure made to represent and hold the presence of an akua (deity) or a family's ancestor guardian spirits.
Who do the kiʻi at Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau represent?
The kiʻi at Hale o Keawe represent Lono, Kāne, Kanaloa, and family ʻaumākua connected to the chiefs whose bones were once kept in that temple. Each figure's carved features correspond to a specific deity or guardian role.
Why were Hawaiian temples destroyed after 1819?
After King Kamehameha I's death in 1819, his heir Liholiho and the chiefess Kaʻahumanu abolished the kapu system that had governed Hawaiian religious and social law. Many heiau (temples) and their images were subsequently dismantled or abandoned across the islands as that religious order was formally ended.
Can I visit the kiʻi at Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau today?
Yes. Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park, on the Kona coast of Hawaiʻi Island, is open to the public, and the Great Wall, Hale o Keawe, and its kiʻi are preserved and maintained there by the National Park Service in partnership with Hawaiian carving families.