Who Are the Menehune? A Kid's Guide to Hawaiʻi's Legendary Builders
The short answer: the Menehune are the little people of Hawaiian legend. They're small, strong, a little kolohe (mischievous) and the best builders the islands ever saw. Storytellers claim they could finish a whole fishpond, wall or temple in a single night and if the sun came up before they were done, they walked away and never came back to finish.
What the legends say about the Menehune
Ask ten people in Hawaiʻi about the Menehune and you'll get ten slightly different stories. But most of them agree on a few things:
They're small. Stories don't agree on exactly how small, but think knee-high to a grown-up. In my books, the average Menehune stands about two feet tall and is ridiculously strong.
They only work at night. A Menehune job starts after dark and has to be finished before sunrise. Thomas Thrum's Hawaiian Folk Tales (1907) records an old saying about it: "He po hookahi, a ao ua pau", meaning one night, and by dawn it is finished.
They don't like to be watched. In many stories, the moment a person spies on them working, the job is over.
They're hidden. They live deep in the forests and valleys, and most people go their whole lives without seeing one. Some stories say only their own descendants could see them at all.
They work for food. Shrimp and fish show up again and again as their favorite payment.
Real places in Hawaiʻi tied to the Menehune
Hold up: run it back. You can actually go see places the legends say the Menehune built? Cheeeeeeehoo!
ʻAlekoko Fishpond ("Menehune Fishpond"), Kauaʻi
Near Līhuʻe, a stone wall about 900 feet long runs along the Hulēʻia River and holds in an ancient fishpond. The legend says the Menehune built it in one night. They passed stones hand to hand in a line that stretched all the way from Makaweli, about 25 miles away. In one version of the story the chief and his sister promised not to watch... and then peeked anyway. Whoops. Pau. Work ovah’.
The pond is on private land, but you can see it from the overlook on Hulemalu Road. It's been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.
Kīkīaola ("Menehune Ditch"), Waimea, Kauaʻi
This old ʻauwai (irrigation ditch) is famous for its cut and fitted basalt stones. One archaeologist called it "the acme of stone-faced ditches," and that kind of stonework is rare in the islands. A road built in the 1920s now covers most of it, but a small section is still visible near Waimea.
So... were the Menehune real?
Here's the honest answer, imma’ be straight with you: nobody knows for sure, and scholars get paid real money to still argue about it.
Menehune stories start showing up in Hawaiian-language newspapers in 1861. Before that, the earliest Hawaiian scholars and missionaries didn't write about them. Archaeologists say the fishponds and ditches themselves are much older, and that Hawaiians built them, with serious skill.
In 1951, a researcher named Katharine Luomala wrote a whole book about it, The Menehune of Polynesia. One idea she looked at was the word itself. In Tahiti, manahune was a word for commoners, the working people who didn't own land. Some people think the Menehune stories might be a way of remembering the everyday Hawaiians who actually did the hard work of building, the people the chiefs' histories left out.
I like that idea, but either way, the walls are still standing hundreds of years later. Whoever built them: Menehune or makaʻāinana, they knew exactly what they were doing—incredible work.
Meet two famous Menehune: Eleu and Molawa
Most Menehune in the old stories don't have names. That's part of their shadowy, stay-out-of-sight appeal. But two of them do: Eleu and Molawa.
A Hawaiian storyteller known as Uncle Charlie described them like this: Eleu means "quick and nimble," and whenever he moved, he was so fast he disappeared. Molawa means "lazy," but what most people didn't know was that whenever he looked like he was sleeping, his magical self was invisible, running around the island doing good deeds.
Those two are the heart of The Pacific Chronicles. In Islanders, Eleu and Molawa become the guides for Kilikina and Kaimana, two ordinary kids from Oʻahu who stumble into a hidden valley. Eleu is the cook (his chicken is made with "Rufo's special seasonings," and he will tell you all about Rufo). Molawa is the storyteller, and he lets slip a secret:
"There are seventy-seven Menehune. Yeah, we are kolohe, but we are Islanders first. We are here to preserve and protect everything Aloha Ke Akua has created. Sometimes we just get bored and maybe take one sock from the dryer, so you always looking for it."
Start the adventure with Islanders →
Questions people ask about the Menehune
Are the Menehune real? They're a legend. Archaeologists credit the real stone fishponds and ditches to skilled Hawaiian builders, but the Menehune stories are a treasured part of Hawaiian culture, and families in Hawaiʻi still tell them today.
How tall are the Menehune? The stories vary, but they're usually described as small, around knee-high to an adult. In The Pacific Chronicles, they're about two feet tall.
What did the Menehune build? According to legend: fishponds, irrigation ditches, stone walls and heiau (temples). The most famous are ʻAlekoko Fishpond and Kīkīaola, both on Kauaʻi.
Why do the Menehune only work at night? In the stories, they're hidden people who don't like to be seen. Working in the dark keeps them secret, and if anyone watches, or if dawn breaks first, the work stops.
What books have Menehune in them? The Pacific Chronicles series (Islanders, Mākaha and Hāna) has the Menehune at the heart of the adventure. For more Hawaiian mythology books, see our reading list: Books Like Percy Jackson, But Hawaiian.
Want to see the old book pages, character sketches and more Menehune stories? Explore the world of The Pacific Chronicles →
