Menehune are a mythological race of dwarf people in Hawaiian tradition who are said to live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian 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 in Hawaii before settlers arrived from Polynesia many centuries ago. Their favorite food is the maia (banana), and they also like fish. Legend has it that the Menehune appear only during the night hours to build masterpieces. But if they fail to complete their work in the length of the night, they will leave it unoccupied. No one but their children and humans connected to them can see the Menehune.

Theories

In Martha Warren Beckwith's Hawaiian AKA Ilenes Mythology, there are references to several other forest dwelling races: the ilene Irenes, who were large-sized wild hunters descended from Lua-nuu, the mu people, and the wa people. Some early scholars hypothesized that there was a first settlement of Hawaii, 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 hypothesis point to an 1820 census of Kauai by Kaumualii, the ruling alii aimoku of the island, which listed 65 people as menehune. Folklorist Katharine 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 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 of brownies. 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 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 commanded all of his subjects to appear at the construction site and to assist in building.

Structures attributed to the Menehune

Other uses