The Menehune and the Waterfall

Hanalei, Kauai

It was the time when the hala fruit ripened and fell, and the parrotfish were said to get fat from feeding on sea urchins in the great sea. The air had a mist-like quality to it and when one looked up into the jagged mountains one could count the waterfalls. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

                “I tink there’s one more,” Rico said checking the mountains.

                “Nope,” he said mostly to himself.

                Seven is still sweet, Rico was muttering.

Hanalei Bay was as picturesque as the Hawaiian Islands got; a crescent bay with a backdrop of enchanting green mountains with up to twenty-one waterfalls in the distance. The place was magical; some even said the birthplace of Puff the Magic Dragon. You could picture dragons flying around this place. Peter, Paul and Mary just changed the name of the place from Hanalei to Hanalee. It was also said to be a place where Menehune magic was strong though, in truth, the famous Menehune Ditch was on the other side of the island near Waimea. However, here in Hanalei, the rainbows were plentiful and natural mystic magic seemed unparallel anywhere else in these islands.

Rico Rosario a short man with big, tattooed arms was just about to knock off a long, hot day of construction. They had run into a problem. They were supposed to clear this area. They had got most of it done when they had come to this enormous rock. The rock did not want to be moved and refused to allow them to finish their job. They had grabbed a tractor, and some chains had put them around the rock, but it still would not budge.

“It might be the tip of a much larger rock,” Kelsten explained.

“Let’s blow it up,” Sonny had said.

“Brah dat’s hewa,” said Peter. Hewa meaning wrong in Hawaiian.

“We’ll move it tomorrow,” the foreman said and with that everyone was glad it was tomorrow’s problem. After work on an outer island with no family usually meant green bottles at the nearest beach park. The parking lot was full of beat-up local trucks and rental cars all shiny and new. Rico clinked bottles with Calvin, this guy he had met since his friend Sam had gone missing on the Big Island of Hawaii. Sam had claimed to be haunted by Menehune. They had been partying inside a lava tube, and some weird shit had gone down, as they were leaving Sam had said he’d seen dozens of little eyes. He disappeared right near Kilauea, the volcano that was currently shooting a fountain of lava one hundred and fifty yards in the air. The whole thing was very surreal.

                The boys were arguing about something. Rico wasn’t really paying attention.

“No ken tell,” Calvin was saying, Rico was barely following him.

He pulled the newspaper article out of his pocket about his missing friend.

“What dat?” a guy named Piko asked.

Rico told them the story, a few had heard it before.

Sorry about your friend, a few offered condolences  

Yeah, sorry more said.

“Menehune is real,” a man named Peter explained, “We jus no ken see ‘em.”

“They can disappear,” Rico informed them. “Dey put one flower…nuku i’iwi behind their ear an pau gone.”

“Dat’s one cartoon,” said Peter.

“Da Menehune and da birds,” said a dark Hawaiian named Lono.

“My brudda Sam swore it was real,” Rico said sadly.

At that time everyone got silent.

Rico mind was spinning again. Had Sam really seen Menehune? Sometimes at night Rico woke up and he thought he saw little eyes staring at him from the corner of the bedroom. Sam had said he had seen something similar in the lava tube, but maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe it was both in their imagination. Rico read the article to himself even though he had read it a hundred times or more.

Search Called Off for Missing Construction Worker

The search for missing Oahu resident Sam Scanlan has been called off. Sam had been over on the big island helping with a construction project. Sam has been missing since last Tuesday, which marks over ten days since he disappeared. Although the body has not been retrieved, police said Sam was last seen heading toward the caldera of Kilauea and most likely fell into a lava tube or steam vent, which blanketed the summit. Currently, the summit of the caldera is closed because of violent eruptions. It is believed Scanlan was trying to return a volcanic rock toward the volcano that had supposedly caused damage to his car. Investigators claim there is no connection between Scanlan, the missing Oahu resident and the violent volcanic eruptions taking place.

Rico thought the last part of the article rather odd. What the fuck were they even talking about?  No connection? Why would there be a connection. He walked to his rental truck, kicking a hala fruit that had fallen to the ground. The pine screw fruit looked like a pineapple but of course tasted nothing like the delectable fruit.

“Shoots,” Rico told his boys, “I going fo head back to town.” Which meant Kapaa? Lihue? There really was no city or big town on Kauai, the closest thing was Lihue. Rico started the engine, green bottle still in hand. It was not easy driving whipping through a rainforest that is basically the wettest spot on the planet. Rico had only heard the story about the Menehune from Sam once, but he had gone over it so many times in his head, he felt like he had heard it a bunch of times. He also knew Sam had had an incident with Menehune when digging a well in Waianae. Rico had been working with Sam at the time but obviously had refused to believe he was being haunted by little Hawaiian gnomes that lived in the forest.

Up ahead was Wailua river and waterfall, a one hundred- and seventy-three-foot waterfall that the king of the island used to jump off to test his prowess. Rico pulled over at a Shell gas station; he was getting another cold pack. His phone began to buzz. It was one of his boys, they were heading toward a bar called Namaka’s. Rico needed quiet, he needed to think. He remembered in Waianae they had found a grotto with strange flowers that Sam claimed belonged to the Menehune. Sam had supposedly taken a statue that’s had been when all the trouble began. Rico couldn’t go to the grotto in Waianae, but he knew there was a fern grotto on this island. It wasn’t much, but it was a place to start.

Rico was disappointed to learn that the grotto was only accessible by boat, but he thought he could rent a kayak and visit on his own. This, however, was a little more than Rico bargained for as the grotto was a good 4.6 miles from the rental place and parking and Rico eventually half drunk and tired from the day’s work, gave up and headed back to his rental truck. It was dark when he got back to his rental, and he was sore and went right to sleep.

The next morning when Rico showed up to the construction site, there was a big commotion. Everybody was standing around staring in disbelief. It would appear the rock had moved during the night. It certainly wasn’t the tip of a larger rock. Also to add to the mystery, there appeared to be a trail in the dirt where the rock had crawled or slithered or however it is that rocks move.

“Someone’s playing a joke,” Calvin exclaimed.

“But if they playing, how’d they move da rock though,” pointed out Kelsten, “We neva even budge it yestaday?’

The boulder, and it was a boulder was maybe ten feet tall, by five feet by five feet wide. A monster of a headstone in a Hawaiian graveyard. Yesterday the stone was immovable, today it appeared to have walked across the yard during the night.

“Maybe,” said the foreman, whose Christian name was Francis. Most of the crew just referred to him as Uncle. He was a short little Hawaiian man, who was often called a Menehune as a joke among the crewmen, still, everyone knew he was the best, “Or maybe it walked over there.”

A few guys laughed, still no one could really tell if he was serious or not.

“Maybe the menehune moved it.” Rico suggested.

Everyone laughed. He wasn’t joking.

The workday continued and was slow moving, but Rico’s mind was on Menehune. He thought there was a good chance the Menehune had moved it, as ridiculous as that must sound to you the reader.

 In the Hawaiian legends, the Menehune were known to do their work at night, and they supposedly could construct amazing things, like fishponds and rock walls so moving a boulder would be small, sweet potatoes.

After lunch, they were moving more rocks when there was a landslide. Rico was hardly paying attention and despite wearing a hard hat took a large rock to the side of his face and was knocked unconscious. He lay on the ground bleeding, and an ambulance had to be called. Two other men sustained minor injuries as well. Rico came to an hour later in the North Shore Medical Center with the stitches already in place. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had forgotten something. And he had flashes of a vivid dream with waterfalls inside caves. Yet try as he might, he couldn’t remember the dream. Something about seven veils, seven rock walls, seven shawls and seven waterfalls. Or maybe he had hit his head harder than he thought.

Rico went back to his rental and took some painkillers. Everything seemed normal, the hauntings wouldn’t start for a couple more days.

Menehune Riddles

The words Seven veils, seven rock walls, seven shawls and seven waterfalls, echoed in Rico’s head. What did that mean? Was it a riddle or something? Rico had the next few days off and bummed around the island, he considered going back to Oahu, but something kept him on the island. A nagging feeling in his subconscious like he was forgetting something. Twice while he was in the shower with the water running, he felt a memory bubbling to the surface. What was it? And why did running water seem to trigger the memory?

He thought he might be having a schizophrenic episode. He thought of his missing friend Sam.

He was in the shower, and he could picture himself under a waterfall. Where was he, it was difficult to tell, the memory seemed occluded, surrounded by a black cloud. It wasn’t the lava tube on Hawaii Island or the was on Oahu, no he somehow gleaned the waterfall was on Kaua’i.

He headed to the Na Pali coast home of dozens of caves and waterfalls. He was not sure what he was looking for, perhaps he just needed to clear his mind. He had hiked down the Kalalau trail which is this exhausting 11-mile hike to a nude beach with a waterfall. Rico wasn’t going that far. He had, however, been hiking a while, he had gone up high above the surf and was now dipping into a valley where there was a stream crossing. Rico had stepped onto a rather slippery rock, when he heard a sound that chilled his bones.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Rico recognized that sound, it was the sound of the menehune. He had heard the sound both in Waianae on Oahu and the fires of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Rico stopped.

“Who’s there?” he yelled out.

There was no answer.

He had walked about 100 yards and was crossing another stream, this one had large boulders.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

“Howzit?” Rico called out. There was no one there.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

“Sam?” Rico called out. His friend was gone but maybe he was with the menehune.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

There it was again. He remembered Sam had said that that noise the KKKi was them. The menehune, a mythical creature that could supposedly use magic and perform great construction feats overnight. Was he just crazy? And Rico had heard the same sound at the well in Waianae where Sam had first disturbed the Menehune. Maybe they were real?

Rico sat down. He needed to think. Out of the corner of his eye the boulder looked like a little person, but when he turned his head, it was just a rock. He was losing it. The rocks have eyes, he thought to himself. He was of course aware in the Hawaiian belief that there were thousands of gods, spirits and deities who happened to inhabit the forest.

“What do you want?” Rico asked the forest.

“I have nothing.” He insisted.

“You already took my friend,” Rico said helplessly. Maybe he was taking too many painkillers. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the rocks along the stream all looked like little people, one was even wearing what looked like a hula skirt. Someone had apparently weaved a skirt and put it around one of the rocks. Out of the corner of his eyes, it looked like a person. A Hawaiian woman wearing a skirt. He could also tell, she was an old woman. He even felt like he could make out her facial features.

It’s just a rock, he said to himself.

“I didn’t do anything.” Rico explained to the rock with the hula skirt, but that wasn’t exactly true . He had besmirched himself by partying in the lava tube. He had known it was wrong and he had done it anyway, and now he was either going crazy, or he was being haunted by little magical beings that lived in the forest and in lava tubes.

That night Rico had a dream that he was back in the Lava Tube on the Big Island with Sam. He must have blocked some of it out, the scene was terrifying. They had climbed underground into Kazumura Lava Tube and were drinking when the party was interrupted. The music stopped, the ground started to shake and there was a low guttural roar coming from down inside the lava tube. People there had played it off as bats, but Rico didn’t think bats made sounds like he had heard. The only reason Rico didn’t scream like a girl is he was six to seven beers deep which gave him a resolute courage. In the dream everything was slightly different, instead of Rico being in front of Sam, he was behind him. There was a ladder you had to climb up out of to get out of the tube. This time Rico was behind Sam, it was like he was seeing what he was seeing. As Rico was ascending the ladder he couldn’t help but look back. What he saw made his blood run cold, there were dozens of tiny eyes looking back at him. He took his hand off the ladder and rubbed his one eye hoping it was some trick of lighting, but the eyes were still there. One even blinked and Rico knew he had to get the hell out of there.

Rico snapped awake, what had he just dreamed? Had that really happened? Sam had said it did, but Rico had never really believed what he had said. It was preposterous, little being that lived in a lava tube.

Back at the job site several workers had reported something that woke them in the night and was bothering them. Perhaps haunting them was a better word, but they couldn’t exactly report they had seen little people running around their bedrooms.

Many had temporarily stopped working.

Rico knocked on the door of the foreman’s trailer. The foreman who was a pudgy Hawaiian Portuguese looking man was sitting at his desk on the phone. He held his pudgy finger up, “I don’t know. The men are freaked out. We need a kahuna.”

He hung up the phone.

“Don’t tell me you’re seeing little people too?” the foreman whose name was ironically Luna asked.

Rico felt a lump in his throat. Why had he even come in here? What was he planning on saying? He would lose his job.

“I think we should cancel the project.” Rico said plainly.

“It’s a 3-million-dollar construction project. You don’t just cancel something like that.” Luna explained.

Rico leaned in close whispering, “These hauntings, they’re going to get worse.”

“I’m hiring a kahuna, we’ll push on tru,” he said but he meant through.

“You don’t understand, that’s not going to work,” Rico tried explaining. “this is my third encounter with the menehune.”

“Maybe dey following you,” Luna accused. As each of the men got angrier their pidgin began to get thicker.

“Dey following me because we’re building a road thru da forest an obstructing a waterway.”

Rico’s pidgin was also getting thicker as he was getting worked up. He pointed to a stream on a map that would be choked out because of the road they were building.

“So, you’re saying we cancel a three-million-dollar project because little forest elves don’t want da road built?” Luna was now practically yelling. 

“I’m saying we’re gonna run into problems.” Rico had raised his voice also.

“It’s cute you tink there’s a ‘we’ in dis…roadways have gotta be built an I don’t wanna hea another peep out of you if you like keep your job.” Luna explained.

Rico was quiet, but he looked like he wanted to say more.

“Get some rest,” Luna told him.

Rico left the office; his head was still aching from the accident. He touched the stitches on his face; they were still very tender. He had to sit down. Was he losing it? He just almost lost his job over a Hawaiian superstition and a bunch of birdcalls and hooey. Menehune were not real, they couldn’t be, it was just a dream. And Sam had been drunk, stoned and frightened when he claimed to see the many tiny eyes. The other time he had been injured, so in both instances Sam had not been right in the head. Rico was obviously still suffering from his head injury.

He drove home, some workers were going to the bar, but Rico didn’t think it was a good idea. He took some painkillers and tried to rest, but he was right about one thing, the hauntings would get worse.

WaiNiha, Kaua’I

Rico was hurting driving back to his rental; he was on route 56, Kuhio Highway, the part where the road gets super lush like a jungle and has twists and turns like the letter S. The jungle seemed to close all around the car; the radio began cutting in and out. Rico paid little attention; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being trailed by enchanted beings who were tiny and lived in the forest. It was absurd, really. His head had been hit too hard.

Coming around the next S turn, the radio came back on blaring. And this time it caught Rico’s attention. It wasn’t that the radio was extra loud, which it was. It was the song on the radio, a Hawaiian classic by Imua, Menehune Beach Bum Boogie.

“No,” Rico said shaking his head.

Rico adjusted the dial, he was sure this song had not been on a moment ago, but now it was blaring in full swing:

“I eat until opu full and I know that’s it’s a fact.

That I’m coming down with all the symptoms of kanak attack.

I swing my hips from left to right
'e ku'i 'ami just right
It's menehune beach bum boogie
Boy is it a sight.”

Rico felt like he was floating out of his body for a moment. Was the radio speaking to him. The idea was absurd, still he couldn’t shake the feeling. He was listening but unsure what it meant. Or was it more menehune pranks? Rico wasn’t sure. He drove home shaken about reality and the world around him. A while back Sam had given Rico, a number to call. The phone rang and rang. No one answered.

“Fuck,” Rico stammered to his empty rental.

Rico called again and an aging hippy picked up the phone.

Rico explained the situation, Joe had heard about Sam being missing, it was on the news and in the newspapers. Rico told Joe about the menehune bothering him and the hauntings and the radio. 

“Like the moonlight, music shows the world for what it truly is,” Lepo Joe explained. He was an odd bird, but he seemed to know about the occult. He told Rico to go to Wainiha.

“Back to the beginning. You may stumble onto to what you’re looking for there,” Lepo Joe seemed certain.

Rico was headed back to Hanalei, in fact, close to where they were building their roadway. Wainiha is a community section in the Hanalei district of Northern Kauai. It has a total population of 419 according to a 2020 census. According to a census from the 1820’s, they reportedly counted 65 Menehune in Wainiha, Kaua’i. Out of roughly 2000 people these people claimed ‘menehune’ as their ethnicity or nationality. Rico figured it was a place to start.

Wainiha literally translates in Hawaiian into unfriendly waters, the town had one store and a few hundred houses.  The town was quiet, almost like it was under a spell. Rico wasn’t in the mood for fairy tales seeing he had been living inside one for the past few years. Menehune were basically Hawaiian elves that were even capable of magic and spells.

Rico wandered around the Wainiha General Store, basically the only merchant around, hoping to get a lead. He had been there over a half hour and hadn’t met anybody interesting. Eventually the clerk approached him, “Brah you just browsing or you gonna buy something?”

Rico wasn’t sure how to breach the subject. Maybe he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

Eventually he meekly asked, “Ai looking fo da menehune.”

The clerk smiled, “Oh you want Aunty Kukulu. She just up da road about mauka side.”

Rico was shocked even as he followed the directions and headed up the road. Was this part of the nervous breakdown? He knocked on the door of a house that looked like it had been in the neighborhood for more than a few years. It was a small cottage with a lani that extended around the side of the house. Rico wasn’t sure he should be doing this, bur Aunty Kukulu turned out to be friendly but not at all what he expected.

Aunty Kukulu was short and fat and round. She was probably like five feet tall with a smile that could light up a candle. She was polite and gracious, but she did not buy the myth the menehune were little magical people that lived in the forest.

“My family is of the manahune ethnicity going all the way back to the Marquesas Islands. We are a common people that were treated as slaves. It is true we built rock structures and fishponds.”

“No, I’m looking for the magical kind.” Rico explained.

“You are mistaken.” Aunty Kukulu informed him.

“Dey tiny,” Rico explained “And dey been haunting me.”

Aunty Kukulu looked at Rico with pity, she thought maybe he had a drug problem or something, “In Tahitian language manahune means low-class or commoner.”

The Watch

Rico tried to forget about the menehune, he was cleared to go back to work. It would be nice to get his mind off things. He pulled up with a clear mind and a positive attitude. The construction site was in shambles. The equipment hadn’t been put away properly and someone had dug an enormously deep hole in the ground. Something very strange was going on. The superstitious crew had decided to move the trailer over across the clearing near where the giant boulder had supposedly crawled, which ended up being a horrible idea. The trailer was about eight to twelve feet wide; it had a desk and a small office. The watchman usually stayed in there at night. His name was Wayne and he was a balding Hawaiian man with glasses.

Rico walked around the place was in chaos. Two men were pointing at the hole which was exceptionally deep and hard to believe people had dug.

A lot of the workers were refusing to work. Apparently late last night something had come and was shaking the trailer. The night watchman was more than a little rattled. The trailer had violently shaken while he was inside when Wayne came out with a flashlight, there was no one around. He didn’t see any evidence of people, except for tiny footprints all over the ground since it had just rained. He had initially believed it was an earthquake until he had seen the tiny footprints.

“It was da menehune,” Wayne, the watchman was saying. He seemed unsure or maybe he was just unsteady.

“You can still see the footprints,” one of the workers named Koa yelled. Low and behold, you could still see several sets of tiny footprints around the trailer. The footprints could be followed several yards into the forest where they disappeared into the mountain.

“No can, dis a joke,” said Peter.

“Someone’s playing games,” said Kelsten.

Rico thought for sure someone was playing games, but Wayne insisted he saw no people all night long.