Mutual Publishing has published Menehune Mystery, written by veteran journalist Jan TenBruggencate. Generations of Hawaiis residents have been raised on stories about the Menehune as magical and mischievous little people, living primarily in the mists of island forests, in the history of our oldest places, and at the very edge of our vision.
Mutual Publishing has published “Menehune Mystery,” written by veteran journalist Jan TenBruggencate. Generations of Hawaii’s residents have been raised on stories about the Menehune as magical and mischievous little people, living primarily in the mists of island forests, in the history of our oldest places, and at the very edge of our vision.
But Menehune are far more than a fairy tale, and there is ample evidence that the tradition has changed dramatically over time. Across 30 years of research, journalist and historian TenBruggencate has tracked down the Menehune tale’s many tendrils.
Today’s Menehune stories are drawn from separate traditions — the Menehune of Oahu, the Melehuna of Kauai, and tales from other Pacific islands. The Menehune of the earliest stories in the earliest traditions are very different from those we recognize today.
“Menehune Mystery” is a retelling of favorite narratives: The ‘Alekoko fishpond, the Kiki-a-Ola aqueduct, Laka’s canoe, the wizard Kahano-a-newa and Ku-leo-nui, and Kamapua‘a’s house, among others.
It is also a forensic analysis of the myth’s trajectory. Were Menehune the ancestors of Hawaii’s people? Did the famous Wainiha Menehune census actually take place? Which storytellers carried the stories forward faithfully? Who were the narrators who twisted the tale to suit their own objectives? And what evidence exists that little people might once have existed in Polynesia?
