"Hawaiian Folklore”
by: Unknown Author(s)

In addition to the gods which controlled every activity upon which their culture depended – from fishing to farming to making kappa cloth – Hawaiians believed in supernatural beings that helped explain the vagaries of the world around them.

A race of very small, industrious people, the Menehune, were thought to be responsible for the construction of roads, dams, heiaus (temples), walls and fish-ponds that could not otherwise be accounted for. The Menehune only worked at night, and once they started a project, they had to complete it before dawn. They could be mischievous, but were rarely cruel. 

The Night Marchers, or Huaka’i Po, were ghostly columns of ancient Hawaiian soldiers who were sometimes seen – and heard – chanting, beating drums and carrying torches as they marched from the mountains to the sea, their feet never touching the ground. For a mortal, standing in their path, or looking them in the eyes, would result in certain death.

Some Hawaiian “tall tales” explained how natural landmarks came into existence. Before a recent earthquake toppled it, a large mass of lava rock on the southeast coast of the Big Island stood balanced in such a way that it would move, but not tip over, when a strong wind blew or someone pushed it. According to legend, Pele, goddess of the volcano, gave her sister Hiiaka the task of going to Kaui and returning with Lohiau, the man Pele wanted to marry. Before she left, Hiiaka made Pele promise that she would not destroy anything that Hiiaka loved while she was gone including her dear friend Hopoe, who had taught her how to dance. Pele promised, and Hiiaka left. But just as Hiiaka had feared, Pele grew impatient and angry in Hiiaka’s absence and broke her promise. She sent a flow of lava to the beach where Hopoe stood and turned her to stone so she could sway forever to the eternal music of the crashing surf. 

‘Iao Needle, a spectacular 2,000 foot rock spire on the island of Maui, was said to have been formed by a kupua (a person with magical powers) named Maui. The son of Hina, he disapproved of the man with whom his daughter had fallen in love, so he turned him into the spire, so that his daughter could always look at him, but never marry him.

Legend has it that Maui was also responsible for the formation of the Hawaiian islands. While fishing one day with his brothers, he snagged the floor of the ocean with a magical hook. Instructing his brothers not to look, he managed to pull a huge land mass to the surface. When his brothers, unable to resist, turned to see what Maui was doing, the land shattered, breaking into the separate islands that today are known as Hawai’i.

The story of a kupua called Kane ‘Okala is not as widely known. Back in ancient days, at a time when Pele’s rumblings were particularly ominous, the people in a village close to her home in Kilauea decided to try to placate her with a sacrifice. But instead of offering her food, which would have been a true sacrifice since they had not managed their crops well that year, they seized an ill-tempered man whom no one particularly liked and tossed him into the crater. Pele realized that the man was not a sincere sacrifice as soon as her flames began to devour him. Furious, she ejected the burning man, flinging him into the forest. As the rain there doused the flames that had half-consumed him, she gave him an appetite for revenge that rivaled her own. 

As soon as he could stand, the man went rampaging across the island, unleashing insects, vermin and disease, laying waste to crops, destroying the very thing the selfish and deceitful villagers had withheld from Pele, causing widespread hunger and starvation. Those who saw him said he was terrifying in sound and appearance, his voice destroyed by Pele’s fire, his face disfigured by the flames; his skin horribly mottled and pocked. They called him Kane ‘Okala, or rough-skinned man. 

When at last Pele felt avenged, she locked him away in one of her many caves so no one, including herself, would have to look at him again. But whenever her anger is aroused, or she feels that her beloved islands are in danger or she has otherwise been disrespected, she releases Kane ‘Okala and allows him to once again do her vengeful bidding.