Ancient Religion and the Heiaus















The Little Green Man

Informant: Male/26/mixed ancestry
Location: Hanama’ulu, Kauai

When I was about three or four, I was playing in the backyard of my house in Hanama’ulu, where we lived at the time. I remember turning the corner and seeing a little man with dark skin dressed in green near the corner of the house. The minute I looked at him, he disappeared, like he jumped into the ground.

I was terrified. I yelled to my older sister and my mom and told them what I had seen, but they didn’t believe me. But thinking about it now, the little man I saw could have been a Menehune wearing green.


Pele in the Tunnel of Trees

Informant: Male/40/part Hawaiian ancestry
Location: Tunnel of Trees, Kauai





Pele at Halfway Bridge

Informant: Male/64/Portuguese-Filipino ancestry
Location: Halfway Bridge, Koloa

My grandfather had a job as a taxi driver on Kauai around the 1950's. One night as he was driving toward the west side, he noticed an old woman in white walking on the side of the road. Since it was his job to drive people where they needed to go, he instinctively pulled over and asked the woman if she needed a ride. She didn’t say anything, but just got into the car, and my grandfather drove off again. After a little while he turned around to ask the old woman where she was heading to, but when he looked in the backseat, she had vanished. 

He immediately knew that the old woman he picked up had to have been Pele.


Menehune at Marine Camp

Informant: Male/64/Portuguese-Filipino ancestry 

Location: Marine Camp, Kauai

When I was around seven or right, me, my brother, my dad and his friend went to Marine Camp to fish. This area at the time was very remote, with no houses around. Even today it’s still a hard place to get to with just a bumpy dirt road. 

We had planned on staying the night, so after fishing we set up our tents and went to sleep. When we woke up in the morning, we discovered footprints all around the tents. Not just regular footprints, but prints that were only about 4 inches long. They were small, like a toddlers. And there wasn’t just one pair, there were many pairs, like many little people had been running around our tents. 

My dad’s friend, who was half Hawaiian, said nonchalantly, “Ahhh, that was menehune.”

The Haunted Desk

Informant: Female/62/Portuguese ancestry 
Location: Lihue, Kauai 

A colleague of mine at the school I taught at was having some problems in her classroom. Not student problems, but mysterious problems. The lights would go on and off on their own, her TV would turn on and off on its own, things like that. She knew that I was Catholic, so she asked me if I could come and bless her classroom. 

She didn’t always have these problems. They all started when she got a new teacher’s desk (a hand-me-down) for her classroom. The flickering lights and TV she could handle, but when it started to follow her home, that’s when she got scared. 

She picked her kids up after school one day, and noticed that her infant stared at the ceiling of the car laughing the whole ride home, as if being entertained by something. When she got home, stranger things happened. There was a wind chime by the door that rang every time someone came near the door. She heard it ring and asked her older child to check who was there. Nobody was there. It rang again, they checked again, and still nobody was there. 

So finally I was asked to bless the classroom. When I walked into the room, it felt very cold and ominous. Just a strange feeling. I said a few prayers, sprinkled some holy water, and that was that. When I told this story to my daughter, she asked me if anything was in the desk. My colleague said when she had gotten it, the only thing in it was an old bible in one of the drawers which she threw away. My daughter was sure that the bible was left there to keep the spirits contained.