They called him X-Ray Hands, because he could tell what was ailing a person just by touch. Leaders in the medical indistry would come to Papa and attend his classes: eminent foreign doctors, specialists, the Surgeon General of the United States. Nationally recognized doctors, proud men and women, would lower their heads before him and willingly come back for more.

Papa used to warn against pronouncing death sentences to patients, giving a person however many months to live. “It is not for man to play God,” heʻd say. “Words have power.” If a doctor reaches the limit of his healing ability, the patient may yet be healed by other means. And, there must be humility.

The sacrifice, the mana, and the straightforward compassion that Papa exhibited was astounding. To witness how he treated his patients, and to see the results he got healing people that all other doctors had given up on. Cancer, AIDS, diabetes — you name it, Papa healed it. He was one of the last great masters connected to the pre-Mahele times, when there were still pockets where the Hawaiian way of live was still lived. Of the surviving Kahuna Lāʻau Lapaʻau, he was their leader — Poʻokela— right up until he passed in 2000. I am forever thankful to have witnessed it.