Mene-who-knew

Mene-who-knew? and in just one night, the Menehune had built Līhu‘e Aiport

By Don Acuaman

T legend says alekoko fish pond in L*ihu‘e (below) was built in just one night by the menehune, “the little people.”

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he leeward side of Kaua‘i, like that of all the Hawaiian Islands, is an arid landscape of sparse vegetation. Driving down Highway 50 through Waimea, which means “reddish water” because of the effect of the crimson soil that tints the water (and streets, sidewalks, cars and just about everything else) in this area, one is almost reminded of an Arizona road trip.

“You half expect to see a tumbleweed roll by,” says Kaua‘i native Joel Guy. “But then you come around the corner and there’s this beautiful, lush, little valley overflowing with vegetation.” It’s no secret that plant growth requires fresh water, and the only natural greenery to be found in Waimea is typically near a riverbed. But just up Menehune Road from Highway 50, near the Waimea Swinging Bridge, the remains of an old stone irrigation system quietly fuels both lush flora and a centuries-old debate. Called Kikiaola in Hawaiian, meaning “Chief Ola’s watercourse,” the ancient stonework

is better known as Menehune Ditch. A nearby historical marker from Hawai‘i’s territorial era reads: The row of hewn stones along the inner side of the road is a remnant of one wall of an ancient water-course which is said to have been made by the Menehune.

One should always be skeptical of historical markers that opt for the rather dubious “said to have been” mode of discourse. The Menehune are also said to have been: Hawaiian dwarves or brownies, invisible or visible only to their kin; capable of turning people into stone; and able to complete feats of stonework such as the Waimea watercourse in a single night by handing stones down a six mile double line of workers—a sort of fairy-tale bucket brigade. While these traits seem to be standard trappings one might expect of a mythical little people that flourish in the popular folkloric imagination, the Menehune are also said to have been the real anthropological predecessors of the ancient Hawaiians, with origins separate from and prior to the Hawaiian culture whose folklore they adorn with such sprightly glee. In fact, some have argued that the historical Menehune culture predates all other Polynesian cultures, and even represents the historical link to the lost continent of Lemuria or, in other interpretations, the ancient Semitic peoples of Egypt and Arabia.

While you can’t take the Menehune histories out of the modern popular imagination, it is possible and perhaps desirable to extract modern popular imagination from the history of the Menehune. In an article for the Bishop Museum Bulletin entitled “The Menehune of Polynesia and other Mythical Little People of Oceania,” Katherine Luomala surveys the folkloric record and compares scholarly theories and traditional accounts of the Menehune, debunking many of the far-fetched cultural survivals that linger today.

Those who proclaim Menehene as an earlier, advanced Polynesian civilization point to linguistic evidence that the Menehune seem to have ranged all over Polynesia.

Luomala notes that manahuna, a word linguistically related to Menehune, is the name of a class of people—the commoners or “little people” who performed the labor at the order of the big, powerful ruling class—throughout central Polynesia.

Historical records detail everyday encounters with these people, dating back to the time of Captain Cook. They are described as slightly smaller and darker than the upper classes, but the difference is attributable to a limited diet and excessive amounts of toil in the outdoors; they are by no means dwarves and probably not racially dissimilar to their social betters.

census taken before 1824, during the reign of Kaua‘i’s last independent ruler, Kaumuali‘i. In it, 65 residents of Lā‘au, in Wainiha valley, were recorded as Menehune. Luomala points out that “the term can exist as a personal name without being eponymous” refuting the evidence while wondering why there are no records on any island of the tens of thousands of Menehune residents that would be necessary to complete the masterworks attributed to them in just one night.

Interpreters of Menehune stories would be wise to heed Menehune chronicler Martha Beckwith’s warning: “It is hazardous to attempt to untangle from these legends the actual interweaving of fancy and fact which has gone to their shaping.” Though the structures may be unique in construction

In fact, some have argued that the historical Menehune culture predates all other Polynesian cultures...

When the Europeans arrived, the word for the common laborer class in Hawai‘i (as well as in the Marquesas) had become maka‘āinana. Already by this time the term Menehune had come to mean bands of supernatural craftsmen of slight stature who live in the interior of the islands, especially Kaua‘i.

As Luomala writes, “actually, the maka‘āinana performed the labor on the stone heiaus and fishponds, but as Hawaiian culture altered under the influence of white contact and the histories of many stone structures were forgotten, the mythical Menehune were credited with the construction. The process of attributing such work to the Menehune as more and more history is forgotten is observable today.” In standard folkloric fashion, narrative privilege frequently leads storytellers to insert popular devices from one story into another, borrowing a dramatic dose of wonder to enliven a tale or fill in a gap.

On Kaua‘i, the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, these processes may have been advanced because, as Luomala points out, “the history of its stone structures is the least known and the most unsatisfactory, for ‘the legends are disconnected and the genealogies are few.’”

Another tantalizing piece of evidence cited in favor of the idea of the Menehune as Hawai‘i’s aboriginal people is the

or seem to predate the arrival of the Hawaiians, it does not necessarily follow that a mythical being is the answer to the puzzle they pose.

None of this should discourage the Menehune enthusiast from enjoying the colorful tales of the Menehune, which certainly do add an element of mystery when visiting Alekoko Fishpond in Niumalu or Maniniholo Dry Cave in Hā‘ena. The magical exploits and amazing powers of the Menehune—like those of the leprechauns, brownies and sprites as well as the Mu, Wa, Nawao and other Polynesian forest creatures with whom the Menehune are sometimes conflated—inspire a childlike wonder in those who thrill to such tales. What Luomala suggests is avoiding the temptation to let the Menehune overrun Hawaiian history simply because it is easier and more fun to remember that the Menehune built all the heiau (temples) and fishponds than to find out what may still be known of the actual individual history of each. After all, is it more impressive if the relatively lush oasis surrounding Kikiaola is the magical product of supernatural powers or the result of miraculous human genius in engineering and construction? Until more evidence is uncovered, the debate will continue.

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