The Mythical Menehune of Kaua`i
| The early history of
Hawaii states that there were two influxes of people from Tahiti. The
second voyages of exploration and settlement were led by chiefs who
became distinguished ancestors of the chiefly families of Hawaii. In all
these traditions, recognition is given to the fact that there were
people here before them, descendants of the people who came with
Hawai'i-loa. They were referred to as the Menehune people (ka
poe Nenehune). Myth states that they were the descendants of
Menehune, the son of Lua-nu'u, who appears in the chiefly genealogies of
other areas as Ruanuku.
The Menehune people were probably well
distributed over all the Hawaiian islands, but myths and traditions
concerning them cling more thickly to the island of Kaua'i. It is
probable that the later invaders pushed them gradually out of other
islands so that they congregated in Kaua'i, the last of the large
islands, at the northwest end of the chain. From there they
apparently withdrew to the barren and rocky islets of Nihoa and
Necker, as evidenced by numerous terraces, stone implements, and
stone images.
Waimea Canyon on the island of Kaua'i is now
deserted but shows evidence of very early habitation. Some
traditions say that the thick forested canyons and valleys were home
to the Menehune, come to be regarded as a physically short and
mischievous people - much like Ireland's beloved leprechauns - that
have been a fanciful part of Kauai's folklore. Their presence exists
through hand-built walls and petroglyphs found carved in the rocks.
In reality, they were neither gnomes or fairies, an erroneous
description given to them by later story tellers - indeed, it seems
to be a Polynesian characteristic to laud one's own family ancestors
and to belittle those who preceded them in exploration and
settlement. The Menehune were real, live people of Polynesian stock,
and they are entitled to the honour and glory of being the first to
cross the ocean wastes to Hawaii.
While archaeologists have never found the remains
of a distinctively small race of ancient people on Kaua'i, many
think that the Menehune legend may well have a basis in fact. Some
scholars now believe that the early Tahitians may have given the
name "Menehune" to the Marquesan people who had reached the islands
before them. Perhaps the powerful Tahitians forced their
predecessors into servitude, driving them back into the canyons and
valleys. The word "Menehune" can be translated as "slave" in the
Tahitian language.
Kaua'i's mythical Menehune were a very clever and
industrious tribe. They had a reputation as master builders, but for
some reason worked only at night under the glow of the moon. If they
could not finish a given task in a single night, they abandoned it
forever. Fortunately, this occurred only rarely.
 During
one of their productive nights, the Menehune reputedly built the
island's largest aquaculture reservoir, the Alekoko Fishpond located
near Nawiliwili Harbour outside Lihue. The fishpond was built for a
Kaua'i prince and princess. This mullet-raising pond was created by
constructing a 900 foot dam to cut off an elbow bend in the wide
Huleia River. Holes in the dam allow young fish to enter the pond
from the river but are too small to allow the grown fish to escape.
A favorite engineering method was to pass rocks
by hand along a double row of men in long lines from the site of
their quarry. It took exact planning and well-organized teamwork.
Before building the Alekoko Fishpond, the Menehune warned their
royal patrons not to watch the construction that night. Their
curiosity got the better of them, though, and they immediately
turned into rock. The two stone pillars are still visible on a
nearby hillside.
The little people also get credit for building a
number of heiau (the major gods that came from Tahiti were
worshipped in walled enclosures of stone that were turmed heiau
instead of marae) along the Wailua River and the Menehune ditch in
Waimea. Although the ditch appears quite ordinary on first sight,
inspection of the waterway reveals a unique kind of fitted and faced
stonework that has been found nowhere else in Hawaii. Only a tiny
portion of the ditch has been preserved but it once stretched for
miles, starting from a dam upstream of Waimea River and running down
the cliff to the farms below. The ditch was led past the
perpendicular cliff by building up a wall and waterway with smoothly
cut stone blocks to form a structure which is unique in Polynesia.
Legend relates that the ditch was built by the
Menehune at the request of Ola, a king who wanted to irrigate his
taro patches. For their effort on his behalf, Ola gave them a single
fresh-water shrimp. A neighbouring hill was named Shrimp Hill to
celebrate the occasion and there it stands as a memorial to the
parsimony of employers in those days. The one shrimp was probably
introduced into the tale to stress the magic power of the Menehune
who could feed the multitude on one small crustacean.
Legend states that the only foods available in
Hawaii on the arrival of the Menehune were the fruit of the pandanus,
the pith of the fern tree, the root of the cordyline and the
berries of the ohelo and akala. In Kaua'i the
stronghold of the Menehune, there are two forms of stone pounders
which are not found in any of the other islands of the group. They
are termed "ring pounders" and "stirrup pounders" because of their
shape, and they have comparatively narrow, elliptical pounding
surfaces which form a marked contrast to the large, convex, rounded
surfaces of the pounders used in the other islands to pound the taro
tuber into the poi paste that formed the staple food of the later
inhabitants.
Old stories say that there were once over
half-a-million Menehune living on Kaua'i. Gradually, they went into
hiding and disappeared. A census taken in the early 1800s discovered
that 65 people living in the town of Wainiha on the northern coast
of Kaua'i put down "Menehune" as their nationality. This census is
the last known official report of their existence.
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Source: http://www.janesoceania.com/hawaii_kauai_mythology/index.htm |
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