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Aloha, Cryptozoology
by Dr. Karl Shuker
FATE :: January 2008
Whereas other states of the U.S.A. have attracted considerable cryptozoological attention over the years, it is a strange yet true fact that Hawaii’s mythic and mystery beasts have received far less notice. The present article reveals the hitherto little-realized variety of anomalous wildlife reported from the 50th state.
One of the most prevalent yet mysterious creatures in traditional Hawaiian mythology is the mo’o or moho. According to legend, this ancient, monstrous animal, which is invariably associated with water, functions as a guardian spirit deity, variously protecting individuals, families, districts, and places (particularly fishponds), but it can be notoriously capricious. The mo’o resembles a huge, shiny-black dragonesque lizard measuring anything between 12 and 30 feet in its true form. It possesses the ability to shape-shift (sometimes appearing as a normal, tiny gecko, other times as a beautiful seductive woman), and communicates its wisdom to humans in dreams. It inhabits deep inland fishponds, where its presence can be confirmed if there is foam upon the water surface. Fish obtained from such a pond will taste bitter, further proof of the mo’o’s presence.
For the most part, mo’os remain hidden, spending their time ecstatically consuming the sacred but intoxicating awa root, which induces them to twist from side to side like a canoe’s keel when in water. They can be seen when the initial flames of a fire light the altars created for them near to their ponds.
The petrified head and tail of the mo’o guardian of Puna district on Hawaii are said to be visible at the bottom of two pools—one at Punalua, and the other at Kalapana, half a mile away. Moreover, a female mo’o called Mokuhinia has reputedly made a number of appearances on Maui—most notably in 1838, when she allegedly appeared to “hundreds of thousands” of people gathered at her pond. Three significant mo’os—respectively named Kilioe, Koe, and Milolii—inhabited precipices in the northern coastal region of Kauai. Another two lived in the Wailuku River close to Hilo on Hawaii, and would permit travelers to use them as footbridges to cross the river. Sometimes, however, they would tip their hapless human passengers into the river and drown them. Consequently, these treacherous monsters were eventually destroyed. According to traditional Hawaiian legend, the implacable enemy of unfriendly mo’os was Hiiaka, goddess of lightning, who slew many such monsters.
It is not clear where the Hawaiian belief in such creatures came from. There are no species of giant reptile native to these islands.
Hawaii’s most famous mythical beings are the menehune—benevolent, magical, diminutive humanoids traditionally looked upon in much the same way by Hawaiians as the fairy folk or Little People are by people in the Western world. The menehune are most commonly encountered on Kauai, but have also been reported from several other Hawaiian islands. The most detailed morphological description of them is contained within the standard work on these enigmatic entities—Katharine Luomala’s The Menehune of Polynesia and Other Mythical Little People of Oceania (1951).
In this book, the menehune are claimed to be two to three feet tall, stout and muscular with hairy, dark or dark-red skin, large eyes and long eyebrows, a protruding brow, very long hair on their heads, a short thick nose, sharp ears, a small mouth, broad shoulders, and a round stomach. Living in forest caves and emerging mainly at night, they speak via a series of deep growls or whispers but are allegedly able to communicate telepathically too, and are even believed capable of learning human languages. They feed upon fruit, vegetables, milk, and fish. Numerous ancient bridges, ponds, ditches, and other structures scattered over the Hawaiian islands are alleged to have been originally constructed by the menehune.
Hawaiian mythology alleges that modern-day Hawaiians are descended from the menehune. Renowned cryptozoological chronicler George M. Eberhart has speculated that perhaps belief in the menehune stems from some ancestral memory of the first wave of Polynesian colonists of Hawaii (a.d. 500–800) retained by the second wave of colonists (a.d. 1100–1300). Luomala, conversely, wondered whether they might be a genuine tribe of pygmies.
Nowadays, the menehune are widely treated as mythical. Yet as recently as the 1940s, over 40 schoolchildren and their schoolmaster, George London, supposedly encountered a group of these mysterious beings jumping up and down among some trees on the lawn of the Waimea Parish property. Once they realized that they were being watched, the menehune swiftly disappeared beneath the church’s foundations. When this property was later examined, no sign of any caves or tunnels through which these mysterious mini-folk could have exited was found, thus substantiating their popular status as supernatural rather than merely elusive entities.
The menehune are not the only mysterious humanoids that have been reported from Hawaii. Larger and hairier than those were the nawao, described by Martha Beckwith in her still-classic work Hawaiian Mythology (1940) as being a race of wild people who fed upon bananas in the forest, and did not associate with modern humans. A hunting race, and formerly numerous, the nawao are believed by some to have colonized Hawaii before the menehune, but they are apparently now entirely gone. There are claims that it was the menehune who vanquished them.....Read the rest of this article exclusively in the January 2008 issue of FATE!
