Menehune, The Ancient Hobbits Of Hawaii

WHAT ARE the Menehune? The Menehune are a legendary race of diminutive hominids from the Hawaiian Islands, and are part of the oral history and/or mythology of the native Hawaiian people. Often compared to legends of brownies or Leprechauns due to their size. Menehune have been described as anywhere from several inches to several feet tall, or even closer to regular human height in some instances. The most common depictions have them around 3-4 feet in height. Allegedly, the Menehune are also said to have almost supernatural abilities and skills, such as creating large-scale construction projects overnight.

In modern Hawaii, the Menehune are more or less treated as a fairy tale, and have been relegated to advertisements, children’s stories, cartoon characterizations, etc. You’ll see a smiling, pot-belied little man in the logo for “Menehune water”. As well, you’ll find listings for businesses such as Menehune Landscaping, Menehune Plumbing, etc. across the Hawaiian islands. Outside of Hawaii, the mere suggestion that the Menehune are anything other than myth is met with ridicule and contempt, which itself is an attitude based in falacy, as we’ll see shortly.

Before I go on, full disclosure: I was born and raised in Hawaii, and lived there for decades before moving. As such, I am very familiar with the mythology of the Hawaiian Islands. I feel this is a huge advantage, because any cursory research on Menehune online yields very similar, if not the exact same results in practically every article. This is not too surprising, as it usually happens with topics with very few first hand accounts and primary sources. I feel that, given my background and perspective, I can dig a bit deeper.

I wouldn’t say that I feel more inclined to “believe” in Menehune for this reason. There are a lot of local legends that I don’t consider “real” in the slightest. I would be perfectly content to think of Menehune as 100% mythology if the data indicated that. That being said, please also know that the following is speculation, and definitely not a belief. I also understand that “Menehune” may or may not be a new one for the readers out there, but I also suppose with the recent and continued growth of tourism and a Disney resort in Hawaii, that some of you might be familiar with the legend.

So let’s get into some Menehune lore. It should be noted that the native Hawaiians up until recent times did not consider the Menehune to be myth or legend, but instead saw them as real physical beings. This means that all accounts that are re-told and handed down from ancient times are repeated with a sincere and factual tone. The Kupuna (elders) of Hawaii will speak to you about Menehune with the absolute respect of something that is real.

The following information comes to us care of the Kauai Historical Society’s YouTube channel, and specifically a video entitled “Tales of the Menehune with Aunty Aletha”. Mahalo to everyone involved in that, and particularly Aunty Aletha for making available such a treasure of a presentation. Aletha (a respected Kupuna, librarian, and historian from the island of Kauai), leads a discussion and presents her own research and findings on the historical and archaeological reality of the Menehune. She also speaks at length about their rich history and heritage that is specific to the island of Kauai.

Here are some talking points taken from that video:

Menehune were already living in the Hawaiian islands when Hawaiians first arrived from the South (Tahiti).

In Hawaii’s distant past, it was said that the Menehune population on Kauai reached 500,000

A population of Menehune remained on Kauai after they had vanished from the other islands.

On Kauai, they were friendly with the Hawaiians.

There were not enough Menehune women, so some took Hawaiian wives.

At one point, a Menehune king didn’t want his men to marry Hawaiians.

The Menehune were credited with building many large-scale stone works utilizing quarried stones cut to ft. These include paved trails, waterways, Heiau, fishponds located on all of the Hawaiian islands.

On Kauai, they built Ola’s watercourse at Waimea, Kauai – still brings irrigation water to Waimea valley.

They always worked at night. Projects finished in one night, or not finished at all.

When building with stones, they would form a double line, shoulder-to-shoulder, from quarry to project. They would then pass rocks hand to hand to the construction site. These labor chains would sometimes stretch for miles.

The Menehune were known to be quiet when they worked, noisey when they played.

They lived on all islands, and favored certain valleys

On Oahu they inhabited upper nuuanu and manoa valley

On Kauai they lived in Kalalau and Wainea valley

Favorite food was Opai (fresh water shrimp)

The idea that the Menehune are the original inhabitants of Hawaii is an interesting one, especially when you overlay it with the latest finds in anthropology. You do have physical evidence, such as a style of stone poi pounder (a tool used to make poi, a staple Hawaiian food) found on Kauai that only exists in the Marquesas Islands, which are located over 2000 miles to the South East of Hawaii.

There is also the idea that the name “Menehune” stems from a mistranslation of the Tahitian word “Manahune”, which means “people of low status”. So perhaps the Menehune were not literally small people, but were people who were of a lower class. It’s no secret that there was a caste system in ancient Hawaii, so this is not at all surprising. This could also indicate that the Menehune were indeed a separate group of humans originating in the Marquesas that were subjugated by the arriving wave of people.

An important consideration here is that the official answer to “when Hawaii was first settled by Hawaiians” is sometime between 124 and 1120 AD. That’s literally a 1000 year window in which, humans may or may not have been in the Hawaiian islands at all. The most commonly accepted theory is that several migrations happened in waves over the centuries, which does seems to line up with our legends of the Menehune.

Unfortunately, these legends of occupation and invasion don’t exactly end well. While I can’t site a specific source, I remember from my own “past research” into the subject that (as the legends go), at some point the Hawaiians and Menehune got into an all-out war which effectively ended in the genocide of the Menehune. The last remaining tribes of Menehune agreed to retreat far back into the mountains and central parts of the islands, with a true held between them and the Hawaiians stating that each race will forever leave the other alone. Apparently, this was not the case on the island of Kauai, where the Menehune and Hawaiians co-existed nearly into the modern era. ***Cite census Kauai MENEHUNE***

So, the Menehune weren’t actually little people? It’s very possible (and perhaps likely) that they weren’t. However, that’s not where this story ends. Enter: Homo floresiensis, a.k.a. the “Hobbits” or “Flores Man”. Homo floresiensis refers to a fossil discovery in 2003 on the island of Flores, Indonesia. The fossils identified a previously undiscovered hominid species of “little people”. These people were an evolutionary cousin to us, Homo sapiens sapiens, and represented a distinct evolutionary lineage; not unlike Neanderthals or Denisovan man. However, unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans, Homo floresiensis on average stood 3 ft. 6 inches tall! There have also been over 10,000 stone tools found that are associated with Flores man, and it’s assumed they were fairly sophisticated. A total of 15 different individual Homo floresiensis specimens have so far been identified.

What’s more interesting, is that “Flores Man” has been found not only in Indonesia, but fossil remains have been found on pacific islands as far east as Palau. The distance from Palau to Hawaii is still over 4700 miles, but it does show that the “little people” were indeed migrating in the direction Hawaii. So we have fossil remains of an ancient race of sea-faring little people in the Pacific. I’d say they’re sounding like a pretty good candidate for the Menehune of Hawaii.

One that I’m not exactly sure how to interpret, is the Flores Man’s extinction date. Originally, the fossils found on Flores were assumed to be around 12,000 years old. This would not only put the time of their existence well within reach of human contact. It would also suggest that humans and “Hobbits” lived along side each other. Then, it was decided that “due to an undetected unconformity in the cave stratigraphy”, the fossils were said to actually be 50,000-60,000 years old. Meanwhile, the fossils found on Palau might be as young as 1,700 years old. I’m going to require more evidence before I consider anything to be a reliable extinction date, and personally I’m inclined to believe that they survived a lot closer to the modern era than even 10,000 years ago.