The Kukui nut has many uses. Initially it was most appreciated for its light, the oil of the white kernels being extracted for its use in stone lamps and in it leaf sheath torches. The shelled nuts were skewered on a coconut frond mid-rib and lit one by one, from the top to bottom, as they sat in a container of sand or dirt, or in the earth itself. Often children were given the accountability for keeping the "candles" lit. The tree is sometimes called the Candlenut Tree. The nuts are widely used as a conventional lei, both the hard shells of the polished black, tan or brown, and undeveloped white, which are more rare. The white flowers and downy, angularly pointed leaves are also strung as lei, demonstrating Molokai, whose symbolic colour is silvery green. The bark, flowers and nuts are all used for medicine. As food, a small amount of the pounded roasted nuts, plus salt and sometimes chilli peppers, is used as a relish and is called `inamona.

The small, five-petaled white flowers were chewed by the parents of a young child and given to the child to aid in therapeutic of era (thrush) sores inside the mouth and upon the tongue. Also used for this problem was the juicy sap that fills up the melancholy left when the stem is pulled off the green fruit. This is applied with the finger and rubbed inside of the child's mouth and on the tongue. The green fruit is the part of the plant that contains the nut. This sap is also a healing treatment for chapped lips, cold sores and mild sunburn.