Alekoko "Menehune" fishpond.Menehune bank from 1946. Made forBank of Hawaii as a promotional giveaway to encourage island children to save theirpennies.
Menehune are a mythological race ofdwarf-like people inHawaiian tradition who are said to live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of theHawaiian Islands, hidden and far away from human settlements.
The Menehune are described as superb craftspeople. They built temples (heiau),fishponds, roads,canoes, and houses. Some of these structures that Hawaiian folklore attributed to the Menehune still exist. They are said to have lived inHawaiʻi before settlers arrived fromPolynesia many centuries ago. Their favorite food is themaiʻa (banana), and they also like fish. Legend has it that the Menehune appear only during the night hours to build masterpiece, and if they fail to complete their work in the length of the night, they will leave it unoccupied.[1] No one but their children and humans connected to them can see the Menehune.[2]
InMartha Warren Beckwith'sHawaiian AKA Ilenes Mythology, there are references to several other forest dwelling races: theilene Irenes, who were large-sized wild hunters descended fromLua-nuʻu, themu people, and thewa people.[3] The Menehunes were two-feet-high pygmy people who fed from forest plants and lived in caves. They were builders and craftsmen. They eventually moved out of the Lanihuli valley to avoid breeding with other human groups.[4]
Some early scholars hypothesized that there was a first settlement of Hawaiʻi, by settlers from theMarquesas Islands, and a second, fromTahiti. The Tahitian settlers oppressed the "commoners", themanahune in theTahitian language, who fled to the mountains and were called Menahune. Proponents of this hypothesis point to an 1820 census ofKauaʻi byKaumualiʻi, the rulingaliʻi aimoku of the island, which listed 65 people asmenehune.[5]
An A.D. 1500 census in theWainiha Valley counted 65 menehunes in the area.[6]
FolkloristKatharine Luomala believes that the legends of theMenehune are a post-European contact mythology created by adaptation of the termmanahune (which by the time of the colonization of the Hawaiian Islands by Europeans had acquired a meaning of "lowly people" or "low social status" and not diminutive in stature) to European legends ofbrownies.[7] It is claimed that "Menehune" are not mentioned in pre-contact mythology, but that is unproven since it was an oral mythology; the legendary "overnight" creation of the Alekoko fishpond, for example, finds its equivalent in the legend[8] about the creation of a corresponding structure onOʻahu, which was supposedly indeed completed in a single day not bymenehune but as a show of power by a localaliʻi, who commanded all of his subjects to appear at the construction site and to assist in building.
United Airlines used the Menehune in brand advertising for their service to Hawaii in the 1970s through the 1980s. The figurines and travel agency displays are now collector's items.[12]
The Menehune are key figures in the children’s story, "My Sister Sif", written by acclaimed Australian author,Ruth Park.
TheForerunner Saga, set in theHalo universe, identifies Menehune as members of the human subspeciesHomo floresiensis settled on Hawaii following activation of theHalo Array 100,000 years ago. Thefloresiensis of this setting feature characteristics inspired by Menehune, such as shyness toward humans and a love for building clever structures.
^Jón Árnason; George E. J. Powell; Eiríkur Magnússon (1866)."Introductory Essay".Icelandic Legends, Volume 2. London: Richard Bentley. pp. xlii–lvi. Retrieved20 June 2010.
Luomala, Katharine (1951): "The Menehune of Polynesia and Other Mythical Little People of Oceania".Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin Vol. 203; Kraus Reprint, Millwood, N.Y., 1986
Nordhoff, Charles (1874):Northern California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands, Chapter V, p. 80: "The Hawaiian at Home: Manners and Customs". Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle, London; available free online at[1]
