The Pae Kiʻi Māhū o Wailua is a row of large stones with carved petroglyphs near the mouth of the Wailua River on the island of Kauaʻi. There are many different stories about these stones, of which a version recorded by Frederick Wichman in Kauaʻi: Ancient Place-Names and their Stories is most relevant to the Hawaiʻi Queer History Trail.

It begins with a visit to Kauaʻi by Kapo, a goddess of fertility, sorcery, and dark powers. With her traveled a bevy of young women in need of husbands. When they arrived at the beach called Makaiwa, near present day Kapaʻa, they saw eight handsome young chiefs surfing. 

Kapo borrowed aboard and joined them, and one by one attempted to interest these eligible men to go ashore to “drink ʻawa” with a maiden—a common euphemism for making love. But the men were not interested in the young women and refused to go ashore; they preferred their own company. Infuriated, Kapo created a series of giant waves, the third of which caught the young chiefs and crushed them beneath the water, turning them to stones that were then pushed ashore. These are the Pae Kiʻi Māhū o Wailua, which some Hawaiian scholars translate as “the row of homosexual images at Wailua.”