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In Hawaiian mythology, the 'Menehune' [pronounced meh-neh-HOO-neh] are said to be a people, sometimes described as dwarfs in size, who live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian islands, far from the eyes of normal humans. Their favorite food is the ''mai'a'' (banana).
The Menehune were said to be superb craftspeople. Legends say that the Menehune built temples, fishponds, roads, canoes, and houses. They are said to have lived in Hawaii before the human settlers arrived many centuries ago.
In Beckwith's ''Hawaiian Mythology'', there are references to several other forest dwelling races: the ''Nawao'', who were large-sized wild hunters descended from Lua-nu'u, the ''mu'' people, and the ''wa'' people (Beckwith 1970:321-323).
Some early scholars theorized that there was a first settlement of Hawai'i, by settlers from the Marquesas Islands, and a second, from Tahiti. The Tahitian settlers oppressed the "commoners", the ''manahune'' in the Tahitian language, who fled to the mountains and were called Menahune. Proponents of this theory point to an 1820 census of Kauai by Kamualii, its ruling chief of that island, which listed 65 people as menehune.
Folklorist Katherine Luomala believes that the legends of the ''Menehune'' are a post-European contact mythology created by adaptation of the term ''manahune'' (which by the time of the settling of the Hawaiian Islands had acquired a meaning of "lowly people") to European legends of brownies (Luomala 1951). ''Menehune'' are not mentioned in pre-contact mythology; the legendary "overnight" creation of the Alekoko fishpond, for example, finds its equivalent in the legend (Nordhoff 1874) about the creation of a corresponding structure on Oahu, which was supposedly indeed completed in a single day - not by ''menehune'', but, as a show of power, by a local alii who demanded every one of his subjects to appear at the construction site and assist in building.

Contents

Supposed Menehune structures

Other uses

References

See also

External links

Supposed Menehune structures

★ Alekoko fishpond wall at Niumalu, Kauai

★ Kikiaola ditch at Waimea, Kauai

Other uses

★ In the experimental 1970s ''Aloha'' network developed at the University of Hawaii, the packet controllers were called Menehune, a pun on the equivalent ''IMP'' (Interface Message Processor) in the early ARPAnet.

★ They are also a fictional race ("kith") in the role-playing game .

★ It is also the name of a popular brand of water bottled locally in Hawaii.

References

★ Beckwith, Martha, ''Hawaiian Mythology'' (University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu) 1970. URL: www.sacredtexts.com

★ Luomala, Katherine (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]

See also

★ Homo floresiensis

★ Nawao

External links

★ The Three Menehune of Ainahou