Menehune

In this week's episode, we're saying aloha to Hawaii for the first time for the lovely little craftsmen, the Menehune! What architectural phenomena have been attributed to these monsters? How could you ensure that they helped you with your DIY? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

I’m technically home from my holiday if you’re listening to this on the day it releases, but I am travelling back home from the north where I took off from so decided to also record this one massively in advance. I can almost guarantee I’m sat on a train feeling very sorry for myself with immense sunburn, ginger problems indeed. 

DESCRIPTION:

We’re going somewhere nice and warm this week too, to a mythology we’ve kind of gone into before, but not specifically, but come with me to Hawaii this week for the awesome little Menehune!

The Menehune are described as short statured, forest dwelling dwarf-like creatures, who looked like usual humans, but only 6 inches to 2 feet tall and much thicker in stature. They were described as little people, as they generally looked like shrunken down humans and would have whole communities of all genders in their groups. They lived in the forests of all the Hawaiian islands where they would live happy lives, cliff-diving, dancing, singing and playing instruments, usually undisturbed and unseen by humans. 

They are physically described as being muscular, with big eyes and eyebrows and protruding foreheads. Whilst the female Menehune were often described as beautiful and voluptuous. 

They are entirely nocturnal creatures and didn’t enjoy being out in the heat of the sun. In the nights, as well as their frolicks - they used their amazing power. They were expert stonemasons, carpenters and engineers and would craft incredible statues, monuments and buildings all overnight. Of course, they were incredibly strong because of this and incredibly smart. They would do this for themselves and for humans, but would always disappear when the sun rose, work finished or not. Islanders could call upon them to do this work by leaving one shrimp per Menehune.

Their favourite food was bananas and fish, and they also had the skills to create magic arrows, which they would use to pierce the heart of angry people and turn the feeling into love instead, like mini-cupids.

But unfortunately, all of that is about all we know about their physical appearance and what they can do. We can only assume about how they reproduce and how they die based on their human-like looks and communities - that they reproduce and die just like us.

What we do know though is that they are responsible for some of the most amazing structures within the Hawaiian islands, and they are still considered the creators of them to this day. For example, the Alekoko Fishpond on Kauai was built overnight by Menehune according to legend and is over 1,000 years old. 

They also built the Menehune Ditch, which is a historic irrigation ditch that funnels water from the Waimea River on Kauai. I’ll go into some more specific stories around them later, but these are two incredible feats of many that are attributed to their amazing building skills, even in the modern day. 

ORIGIN:

In etymology, there are actually two translations for Menehune, which is a Hawaiian word and actually can be linked to another word for them, Kama'āina which means ‘child of the land’ or indigenous people. In Tahitian, another Polynesian island language from Tahiti funnily enough, Menehune means ‘commoner’ and was a word used for the lowest class of labourers. 

Their history is so utterly interesting, mainly because this isn’t a place we’ve been to before in the podcast and whilst Hawaii is technically within the US and also within Polynesia, it’s also got its own folklore separate to everyone else, which I love. However, this does mean that some of this has been lost, as due to tribal culture and a generally more isolated place before settlers from Europe came across, it meant many died with this traditional story and monster in their minds and in their culture, but not on paper - so researching it is a little more difficult. 

It also means that officially, we know that the Menehune have been around for at least 1,000 years to match the Menehune Pond creation, as otherwise it wouldn’t have the name, but in writing, the Menehune was only found when the Europeans came in and wrote it all down, which was in 1853. This was by the Australian antiquarian Thomas George Thrum, who wrote Hawaiian Folktales and talked about the Menehune being the original ancestors of the Hawaiian people and their culture, which predated all of the other Polynesian folklore.

Many other missionaries came across to Hawaii throughout the 1800’s and wrote so much about Polynesian and Hawaiian folklore, but no others mentioned them in their books. It was also missing in the original explorers and whaler logs from the 1700’s when Captain James Cook ‘founded’ the island in 1778. But there could be many reasons for this, such as natives not telling missionaries about local beliefs, the loss of native people from European-carried diseases, fairytales brought across from Europe for example. 

But also in Hawaii at this time in history, it was a little rough to say the least. It was officially founded by Cook in 1778, yes - but around all the time when these missionaries were talking about this monster, it was the 1860’s. The Civil War in the US was in full swing, Hawaii declared itself neutral and the first newspapers were established on the island, which is where the myth really kicked off. 

From 1875, the same Thomas George Thrum published his data on Hawaii and called Menehune a race of ‘dwarves’, ‘industrious elves’ and ‘little people’. He even started to call himself the Father of the Menehune because he loved the idea of them so much. In 1891, linguist William De Witt Alexander gave them magic building powers in his ‘A Brief History of the Hawaiian People’ and talked about all of the structures that have been attributed to them. 

Speaking of which I promised to tell you more about those too, they were discovered by the Europeans in the 1700’s. The Menehune Ditch was found to have 120 perfectly etched basalt blocks to carry the water to the taro farms that is 24ft high and could only be explained as something magical.

The Menehune Fishpond is definitely the same marvel, it’s a 102 acre pond, constructed with a 2700 feet long stone wall from over 1,000 years ago. It’s also packed in with a mud and rock structure that we’ve not found in any other Hawaiian ponds, and would require the workers to complete this underwater. 

There’s a great folklore tale about this pond too, and it’s that the pond was made for a princess and her brother that left them the shrimp they required. However, the Menehune worked in total isolation away from anyone else, and one night, the siblings were curious and watched the thousands of Menehune work, then accidentally fell asleep. At sunrise, the Menehune found them and transformed them into two pillars that can be seen today in the mountains above the fishpond. As the Menehune were interrupted, were two gaps in the wall, which were later filled in by Chinese settlers who wanted to raise fish, but found their stonemasonry was nowhere near as good.

One last story about the Menehune and that is the three Menehune of Ainahou, which is a forest on the island of Maui. The three Menehune were called Ha'alulu, Molawa and Eleu, and all the other Menehune knew them for their fantastical powers. Ha'alulu means "to tremble" and he always appeared to be shivering, but his magic gift was that whenever he would start shaking, he would become invisible and could travel anywhere without being detected. 

Eleu means "quick and nimble" and whenever Eleu moved, he was so quick that he disappeared and was untraceable. Molowa means "lazy," but when he appeared to be lazing or sleeping, his spirit would emerge and he would go around the island doing good deeds for others.

There are theories that the Menehune are the first people of Hawaii, and in 1820, 65 people were listed in the Census as Menehune as their race. We know that the Polynesians got there in around 1000 AD but did they bring the Menehune with them to the island? Well in 2003, a skeleton was found in Indonesia of a 3.5 feet humanoid that most likely existed with other humans around 100,000 years ago. So the idea of these smaller humanoids, called Homo Floresiensis, might have been the first inspiration or maybe even the first Menehune. 

For our mythical comparison, the one I’m immediately thinking of with this monster is the Duende, a dwarven-fae creature from Iberian, Latin American and Filipino folklore. They fit into the forest dwelling, nature loving dwarven creatures, but are slightly more mischievous - I’m yet to cover these, but will be doing so soon.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there’s nothing on the Menehune themselves that I could find - however, I filled this up with ‘little people’ folklore bits and some Pacific mythology to fill that space up. 

For art, there’s really not much for these at all I’m afraid to say, even on the independent front! Although that is where I will point you for images of these fellas, the ones I could find were great!

In movies, we have; Moana, Island of the Menehune, Suicide Squad, The Dark Crystal, Superman and the Mole People, Willow, Puli, Men In Black, The Phantom Planet, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Dave, Flight of the Navigator, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit & The Bride of Frankenstein.

For TV, we have; Finding Bigfoot, Blake’s 7, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Steven Universe, Amphibia, The Collector, Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, Deadtime Stories, Strawberry Shortcake, Mighty Max, Hilda, Gravity Falls, Futurama, Love, Death & Robots, Men in Black, The Simpsons, Thundercats, The World of David the Gnome, South Park, The Smurfs, Spongebob Squarepants & Kabouter Plop.

In video games, we have ones such as; Pandora’s Box, Pokemon, Tomodachi Life, Kingdom Hearts, Insignificant 2019, Gourmet Warriors, AdventureQuest, Overwatch, SMITE, Arcanum, Warcraft, League of Legends, Final Fantasy 11 & 14, Everquest, Dark Chronicle, Arknights & Granblue Fantasy.

My book recommendation this week is for Hawaiian Myths of Earth Sea & Sky by Vivian Laubach Thompson for the adults who want to learn more about this amazing mythos, and for the kids, have a look at The Menehune of Naupaka Village by Christopher Sur for this gorgeously illustrated story about the Menehune.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

You know what, I think there might be a possibility for this one. I love the idea of these secret dwarves who run around and build things for people in the night for prawns. I respect and appreciate it honestly. 

I also think this creature is so important to the local heritage and culture of Hawaii, and is so embedded within their folklore, which was taken away by the European settlers - and who am I to take that away from them anymore than my ancestors already have. 

With the Europeans and their love for the monster, so much so they thought they had built these amazing structures - shows that they most likely didn’t believe that native Hawaiians could show this much skill in stonemasonry themselves and had to attribute it to a mythical beast instead. Which is just utterly sad, but totally not unexpected from ancient old blokes who never learned another language, let alone how to build a structure like that beautiful pond.

But long story short, I think it’s believable - because they are smaller and secretive - have we looked through the whole Hawaiian forest? No, and I don’t think we should go looking for them. Long may they tinker about in their own time.

But what do you think? Did the Menehune build some of the most amazing structures of Hawaii? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

I loved looking at this monster this week, it was so nice to look into a different mythos and I’m always thrilled to find that I’ve discovered a new one for myself and learnt something new about a different place, and I hope you do too. I’ve always loved Hawaiian and the wider Polynesian culture and folklore, so it was a joy to learn more about this week.

Next week, we’re heading over to Thailand for the first time in a little while and looking at a great and pretty frightening ghost, the Krahang! Look out for a man in a loincloth flying at you next Thursday when I’m back home!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, including some very cool merchandise - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.