An absolutely fearsome and ruthless leader, half of Kahekili’s body was tattooed entirely black so that he would match the description of his namesake, Kāne-Hekili, the Hawaiian God of thunder.

Among the list of fearsome acts, during his conquering of O’ahu he killed most of their chiefs and constructed a house made entirely of the bones of innocents, and accented by the skeletons of the chiefs he had conquered. By the time of his own death, Kahekili’s Maui Empire included all of the inhabited islands of Hawai’i except for the Big Island.