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July 11, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Menehune

“[T]he plausible historical explanation is that the Menehune were the first-wave Polynesians from the Marquesas and they became part of a cultural memory retained and retold in oral stories after they fled in the face of the Tahitian arrival.” (Martins; WorldHistory)

“Menehune tales made a sudden appearance in the Hawaiian newspapers and journals in 1861. Prior to this, the earliest Hawaiian scholars and missionaries made no reference to forest people who were mysterious construction workers.”

“An extensive early history was written by the Reverend Hiram Bingham (1789-1869), an American missionary who arrived in 1820 and spent more than two decades in the islands. Bingham collected oral histories and tales about Hawaiian deities, but there was no mention of the Menehune.”

“The British missionary William Ellis (1794-1872) was aware of the ‘manahune’ of Tahiti – a term that referred to the lowest of the three Tahitian social classes, including unskilled labourers and servants.”

“After a tour of the Hawaiian islands and missionary interventions in political and cultural institutions, Ellis produced his famed four-volume work, Polynesian Researches, in 1831. Given his encyclopaedic knowledge of the South Pacific region, it is curious that Ellis made no mention of the Menehune of Hawaii and any possible link to the manahune of Tahiti.”

“Similarly, Hawaiian historian David Malo (c. 1793-1853), in his work Hawaiian Antiquities, first published in 1838, refers to the Mu (mischievous sprites) but not the Menehune.”

“What has come to be known as the Menehune Ditch was first mentioned in March 1861 in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Hae Hawaii. The construction of Kīkīaola, a historic 24-foot high irrigation channel or auwai in Waimea, Kauai (now called the Menehune Ditch), was attributed to the Menehune, who built it in one night, and it predates the c. 1000 CE Tahitian migrations to Hawaii.”

“It was discovered by Europeans in the 1700s and was described by George Vancouver in 1792. It is considered an engineering marvel due to the 120 cleanly cut dressed basalt blocks, which would have required precision tools and techniques for cutting, that line about 200 feet of the ditch, carrying water to irrigate ponds for growing taro.”

“It also differs from typical Hawaiian rock wall constructions, even though the Hawaiians were fully skilled in stonemasonry.”

“However, there are numerous examples of the use of innovative stone-cutting by early Hawaiians. Fornander points to Umi’s heiau (temple). Umi-a-Liloa (r. 1470-1525) was the high chief of the largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago (Hawaii Island), and his heiau is an elaborate example of cut-and-dressed stone masonry.”

“The Alekoko Fishpond, also known as the Menehune Fishpond, is a 102-acre pond located along a bend of the Hule‘ia River on the island of Kauai. … The inland pond was constructed with a 2,700-foot long stone and earthen wall around 600 years ago, although 1,000 years has also been put forward.”

“As with Kīkīaola, the wall is a unique mud and rock structure that differs from most known Hawaiian pond walls, which are usually made from large basalt boulders. For parts of the wall, workers would have needed to work underwater.”

“The Hawaiian language newspaper, Ka Hae Hawaii, in October 1861, attributed the overnight build of the fishpond to the magical Menehune rather than acknowledging that the Hawaiians themselves were capable of impressive engineering feats.”

“[A]rchaeologists have not found a single piece of evidence pointing towards a diminutive race of people in Hawaii pre-dating the Polynesians.”

“Given the lack of evidence, the plausible historical explanation is that the Menehune were the first-wave Polynesians from the Marquesas and they became part of a cultural memory retained and retold in oral stories after they fled in the face of the Tahitian arrival.” (Martins)

“The name of Menehune probably reached the Hawaiian Islands from central Polynesia, where it is known, with dialectical variations, in the Society, Cook, and Tuamotuan Archipelagoes.”

“Hawaiians reserve the term Menehune for bands of supernatural, night-working artisans of very small height who specialize in stonework and live a simple life in the mountainous interiors of the islands, especially of Kauai.”

“William Hyde Rice describes the Menehune as ‘A race of mythical dwarfs from two to three feet in height, who were possessed of great strength; a race of pygmies who were squat, tremendously strong, powerfully built, and very ugly of face. They were credited with the building of many temples, roads, and other structures.’”

“‘Trades among them were well-systematized, every Menehune being restricted to his own particular craft in which he was a master. It was believed that they would work only one night on a construction and if unable to complete the work, it was left undone.’”

“Menehune were real people who, with the passage of time, have been folklorized by later arrivals in the land, or that they are supernatural beings to whom the deeds of real people were ascribed after the history of the deeds had been forgotten. “

“[I]n many parts of Polynesia and in the adjoining island areas of Micronesia and Melanesia are myths, traditions, and beliefs about little people who are reminiscent of the Menehune although called by other names.”

“[T]he words used to express the numbers of Kauai Menehune were lau (400), mano (4,000), kini (40,000) and lehu (400,000), their total number being melehuka (millions).”

“Once when all the Menehune of Kauai assembled they numbered more than 500,600, not counting the children under 17. The occasion of this great gathering was to prepare for their exodus from the Hawaiian Islands at the order of the king of the Menehune who was worried because so many of his men were marrying Hawaiian women and he wanted to keep the race pure.”

“In their heyday, then, before the exodus, the Menehune were extremely prolific in contrast to the present population, and Kauai was densely populated.”

“The Menehune are playful, love jokes, and have many different kinds of games. On Kauai, before the exodus, they used to carry stones from the mountains to their bathing places, throw them into the sea, and dive after them. They also liked to dive into the sea from cliffs.”

“One of the divisions organized for the exodus from Kauai was made up of musicians, fun-makers, storytellers, and minstrels to entertain the king. Musicians used bamboo nose flutes, ti-leaf trumpets, mouth harps, and hollow log drums.”

“During the exodus, when two chiefesses, Hanakapiai and Hanakeao, died, the former in childbirth and the latter in an accident, the king ordered 60 days of mourning. These were concluded with feasting and games.”

“Among the many sports were top spinning; dart throwing, using a spear-throwing device; hiding a pebble; boxing; wrestling, both standing up and lying down; tug of war; foot racing; sled racing by both men and women down grassy slopes; and ‘a game resembling discus throwing.’”

“Apparently, however, not all the Menehune left at the time of the exodus. [Some] hid in the forests in order to remain with their Hawaiian families.”

“[I]n the reign of Kaumualii, the last independent ruler of Kauai, a census was taken of the population of Wainiha Valley in which 65 of the 2,000 people counted by the king’s agent were Menehune. All 65 lived in a community named Laau (Forest) in the depths of the valley forests.”

“In general, the Menehune are kind and helpful to other people, especially to their descendants. They work for others when asked, or even when not asked.”

“If the Menehune are offended by anyone, they turn the offender to stone.  According to Rice, they regard thievery with contempt and mete out death to the culprits by transforming them into stone.”

“Menehune fear daylight and avoid being seen, and they work only at night. Every job must be finished by dawn, or it is left. There is a saying, ‘In one night, and by dawn it is finished.’”

“Only four incomplete jobs are known: a Kauai heiau [left unfinished because an owl and a dog were regarded as evil omens], a Kauai fishpond, the transporting of Kakae’s canoe to the ocean, and a watercourse on Hawaii [the latter were left unfinished because daylight came before the work was done].”

“Much of their work appears to be done for nothing, from the goodness of their hearts.”

“It is as stoneworkers that the Menehune excel. They have built heiaus, watercourses, fishponds, causeways, rock piles, and stone canoes; rearranged boulders; dug caves; and made many forest roads and trails.”

“The Kauai dam and watercourse, the so-called “Menehune Ditch”, job of fitted and dressed stone work and engineering which involved turning the course of Waimea River and directing the water around a corner of a mountain”.

“There is a saying … ‘Happy is the man whose work is his hobby. The Menehune must be happy, as they love their work. They carry rocks from the seashore to the mountain sides to build heiaus or watercourses as part of their daily, or rather nightly, work …”

“… and they spend their leisure hours carrying rocks from the mountains to the seashore, so that they can either dive off the

rocks or throw them into the water and dive after them.”

“Although the Menehune prefer to live in deep forests in remote valleys and on mountainsides, evidences of their work are scattered widely, especially on Kauai and Oahu with which they are very closely connected.” (Luomana) (All here is from Luomana and Martins)

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Alekoko Fishpond, Menehune, Menehune Ditch, Kikiaola

April 3, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kīkīaola

Kīkīaola (“sprouting springs of Ola) is a ditch that was built prehistorically to irrigate the taro patches in lower Waimea Valley.

Legends and chants tell of Ola, King of Waimea, who, through Pi, his kahuna (priest), ordered Menehune to build a watercourse here; each brought a stone, and the ditch was finished in a single night.

The ditch runs for a length of 7,000-feet. It is estimated that 75-acres of farmland below the tunnel and 35-40-acres above the tunnel can be irrigated by the ditch. In places, the ditch is over 20-feet high.

There is only a 100-foot length of intact ditch wall visible which is located just above (north) the tunnel. The road construction built up a roadbed of dirt on the riverside of the ditch wall that left only the upper 2-feet of the ditch wall exposed.

This remnant is marked by a bronze plaque that was set into the pali face in 1928 by the Territory of Hawaiʻi to mark the historical significance of the site. The dirt bermed ditch contiguous with the walled portion appears to be an intact portion of the original ditch but lacks the exposed stonework.

The earliest written account of the ditch is by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 when he visited Waimea Valley. Vancouver recorded the site at this time as follows:

“As we proceeded our attention was arrested by an object that greatly excited our admiration, and at once put an end to all conjecture on the means to which the natives resorted for the watering of their plantations.”

“A lofty perpendicular cliff now presented itself, which, by rising immediately from the river, would effectually have stopped our further progress into the country, had it not been for an exceedingly well constructed wall of stones and clay about twenty-four feet high …”

“… raised from the bottom by the side of the cliff, which not only served as a pass into the country, but also as an aqueduct, to convey the water brought thither by great labour from a considerable distance; the place where the river descends from the mountains affording the planters an abundant stream, for the purpose to which it is so advantageously applied.”

“This wall, did not less credit to the mind of the projector than to the skill of the builder, terminated the extent of our walk.” (Vancouver)

Kīkīaola represents a prehistoric irrigation feature (aqueduct) used to transport water to the taro fields on the western side of Waimea River in lower Waimea Valley. The water was being used to irrigate cultivated lands located considerably above the level of the river.

An added engineering challenge “was that of carrying the water, at a high level, around the corner of a jutting cliff. An added difficulty was the necessity of placing the base of the causeway in the river itself where it was constantly in danger of being washed away by a freshet.” (Archaeologist Wendell C. Bennett)

Kīkīaola is said to be the only example of jointed stonework and offers a unique example of this type of causeway construction. Additionally, there are three types of joints represented, including double joint, square joint and notched joint.

Bennett made the following description of the courses of stacked cut stone just above the tunnel, “The stones of this ditch are squared off on all sides but the inside. Some of the blocks are squared all around.”

“The object was to have the stones fit closely together and present a smooth, flat surface on the river side. On the inside, where the fill was of dirt or stone or both, the roughness was perhaps beneficial.”

The presence of the dressed stone in the Menehune ditch is unique for Hawaii and for Polynesia. There is, to be sure, other dressed stonework, but none used for aqueducts, and none with the joints in the blocks.

The extent of this one undertaking is unusual for the Hawaiian Islands where dressed stonework is rare. In most other structures slabs are used instead of blocks.

“The Menehune Ditch is the finest example of such rare stone dressing in the Hawaiian Islands. Today the site consists of about 120 carefully cut-and-dressed stones, closely fitted along a distance of some 200 feet, and forming the outer face of the irrigation canal.”

“This canal, which still carries water to taro fields at the mouth of Waimea Valley, Runs immediately adjacent to the narrow road winding between the cliff and Waimea River.” (Archaeologist Patrick V. Kirch)

Historical modifications to the original structure took place around 1920 when the road was built (as well as when a horse path ran parallel to the ditch, before the road was constructed.)

Likewise, top stones of the wall in sections were removed by valley residents for personal use, by the construction crew to build up the retaining wall for the road and other stones were used to construct the realignment of the ditch.

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Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions, General Tagged With: Hawaii, Waimea, Menehune Ditch, Kikiaola

January 17, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kauai Auwai

“Kiki-a-‘ola (Menehune Ditch) represents a prehistoric irrigation feature used to transport water to the taro fields on the western side of Waimea River in lower Waimea Valley.” (NPS)

On March 9, 1792, Captain Vancouver landed on Kauai … “By the time we had anchored, several of the natives visited us in the same submissive and orderly manner as at Woahoo, and appeared better provided.”

“Towards noon, the Chatham arrived; but the wind shifting about prevented her coming to anchor until sunset, when he moored a little to the westward of the station we had taken. Our boats, guard, &c. being in readiness, about one o’clock we proceeded to the shore.”

“Mr. Menzies accompanied me in the yawl, and Mr. Puget followed with the cutter and launch. The surf was not so high as to prevent our landing with ease and safety; and we were received by the few natives present, with nearly the same sort of distant civility which we experienced at Woahoo.”

“A man, named Rehooa, immediately undertook to preserve good order, and understanding we purposed to remain some days, caused two excellent houses to be tabooed for our service; one for the officers, the other for the working people, and for the guard, consisting of a serjeant and six marines.”

“Stakes were driven into the ground from the river to the houses, and thence across the beach, giving us an allotment of as much space as we could possibly have occasion for; within which few encroachments were attempted.”

“This business was executed by two men, whose authority the people present seemed to acknowledge and respect, although they did not appear to us to be chiefs of any particular consequence.”

“I made them some very acceptable presents; and a trade for provisions and fuel was soon established. Certain of the natives, who had permission to come within our lines, were employed in filling and rolling our water-casks to and from the boats; for which service they seemed highly gratified by the reward of a few beads or small nails.”

“Having no reason to be apprehensive of any interruption to the harmony and good understanding that seemed to exist, and the afternoon being invitingly pleasant …”

“… with Mr. Menzies, our new ship-mate Jack, and Rekooa, I proceeded along the river-side, and found the low country which stretches from the foot of the mountains towards the sea, occupied principally with the taro plant, cultivated much in the same manner as at Woahoo; interspersed with a few sugar canes of luxuriant growth, and some sweet potatoes.”

“The latter are planted on dry ground, the former on the borders and partitions of the taro grounds, which here, as well as at Woahoo, would be infinitely more commodious were they a little broader, being at present scarcely of sufficient width to walk upon. This inconvenience may possibly arise from a principle of economy, and the scarcity of naturally good land.”

“The sides of the hills extending from these plantations to the commencement of the forest, a space comprehending at least one half of the inland, appeared to produce nothing but a coarse spiry grass from an argillaceous foil …”

“… which had the appearance of having undergone the action of fire, and much resembled that called the red dirt in Jamaica, and there considered little better than a caput mortuum.”

“Most of the cultivated lands being considerably above the level of the river, made it very difficult to account for their being so uniformly well watered. The sides of the hills afforded no running streams …”

“… and admitting there had been a collection of water on their tops, they were all so extremely perforated, that there was little chance of water finding any passage to the taro plantations.”

“These perforations, which were numerous, were visible at the termination of the mountains, in perpendicular cliffs abruptly descending to the cultivated land; and had the appearance of being the effect of volcanic eruptions, though I should suppose of very ancient date.”

“As we proceeded, our attention w and at once put an end to all conjecture on the means to which the natives resorted for the watering of their plantations.”

“A lofty perpendicular cliff now presented itself, which, by rising immediately from the river, would have effectually stopped our further progress into the country …”

“… had it not been for an exceedingly well constructed wall of stones and clay about twenty-four feet high, raised from the bottom by the side of the cliff, which not only served as a pass into the country …”

“… but also as an aqueduct, to convey the water brought thither by great labour from a considerable distance; the place where the river descends from the mountains affording the planters an abundant stream, for the purpose to which it is so advantageously applied.”

“This wall, which did no less credit to the mind of the projector than to the skill of the builder, terminated the extent of our walk; from whence we returned through the plantations, whose highly-improved state impressed us with a very favorable opinion of the industry and ingenuity of the inhabitants.” (Vancouver, March 1792)

“The water (of the Waimea River) was used to irrigate cultivated lands located considerably above the level of the river. Because of this fact, there are several engineering factors that make this irrigation channel significant.”

“First is the problem if carrying the water at a high level above the water level of the river. The base of the causeway was then placed in the river by necessity which meant it was in constant threat of being eroded or washed away during period of flooding.”

“Another engineering factor was that the ditch had to transport water around the corner of a jutting cliff at river’s edge. The construction of the causeway is unique in the use of dressed and jointed stones.”

“Kiki-a-‘ola is the only example of jointed stone work and offers a unique example of this type of causeway construction.”

“Additionally, there are three types of joints represented, including double joint, square joint, and notched joint. The prehistoric appearance of the ditch wall would have been impressive with a 24-foot high faced wall of dress and jointed stones.”

“Today, the scale of the causeway is only suggested in the exposed upper two to three courses of stonework. The construction of the roadway in 1920 probably buried much of the structure and, therefore, the site still has a high research potential for defining the Hawaiian engineering technology and construction details.” (NPS)

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Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Kauai, Menehune, Menehune Ditch, Kikiaola

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