Ke Kāhili
(The standing shaft rainbow)
According to the Hawaiian-English dictionaries, this is the definition o this type of rainbow:
Pukui/Elbert: 1. nvt. Feather standard, symbolic of royalty; segment of a rainbow standing like a shaft (also a sign of royalty);
Photo by: Ezlez | commons.wikimedia.org
Unverified Photos: These photos demonstrate this type of rainbow based on the authorʻs understanding of the dictionary definitions, context within some Hawaiian legends, newspaper articles, and Hawaiian language recordings. They are not definitive.
This type of rainbow stands straight up and as a result of this, photographing the kāhili is difficult. Therefore, as for the photographs on this page, they probably are not correct (Personal communication (23 February 2021))..
Signs and omens
This type of beautiful rainbow is not often seen in Hawaiʻi. It can be a sign or omen for a variety of things as described below:
According to the legends This type of rainbow did not appear in the legends that were analyzed.
When does it appear
In the month of August in the year 1891 the kāhili and the pūloʻu were seen by a man in his dream. In that dream he saw an aliʻi perched precariously inside a large kāhili rainbow above Iolani palace. At that very moment, the aliʻi fell and that man that was dreaming awoke with a start. The man understood this dream, and he thought, this dream was a sign for the falling of a ruling chief, or a time of overthrow that was coming. In 16 months later after the printing of the newspaper article about his dream, the Hawaiian government was fraudulently overthrown by some missionaries and greedy American businessmen (Unknown author 1891).
Photo by: Ezlez | commons.wikimedia.org