Menehune Today

I had an excellent time on The Coast to Coast AM radio program (gulp, from 2 am to 5 am my time!) last night. George Noory and I shared high energy, great fun, and we moved through several topics you’ve been reading about here at Cryptomundo (e.g. Malaysian Mawas, Mt. Hood Bigfoot, Argentina Lake Monster, Thunderbird, Mothman, and Lizardmen). The crypto-cat fight was even briefly mentioned. In the last hour, we also had wonderful callers.

A recap of the program and link to the audio in their archives can be found here.

The first caller was a remarkable one. The woman – hey, if you are reading this, please contact me – told of how she saw about 20 Menehune, the little people of Hawaii, crossing the road in front of her car. And she hit one. She said they were three feet tall, covered in three different colors of hair, and like little humans but hairy. She said the thing left a bump in her car, and she found red hair. I think George and I ask her at the same time…"Do you still have some of that hair?"

Unfortunately, that was a long, long time ago, and she didn’t save the sample. Hers is a good story, and I hope to hear more about the recent sightings of the Menehune. They relate so directly to the Flores people, the little 3 feet tall Homo floresiensis that it almost goes without saying.

Luckily, I once journeyed to Hawaii over two decades ago, for a two-week stay with my son Malcolm and wife-at-the-time. I spent time on Kauai investigating recent sightings of the Menehune seen around that island. My research resulted in the location photographs and content in the article, “The Menehune: Little People of the Pacific,” Fate, Vol. 4, No. 7, July, 1989.

I also summarized my investigations of the 1940s’ Waimea sightings of Menehune by school superintendent George London and about 45 children from two middle elementary level classrooms, on pages 148-149, of The Field Guide of Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.

Details of the encounter were recalled for me by Reverend Kenneth W. Smith, the pastor of Waimea’s Foreign Church, Christian Church and Hawaiian Church, who had spoken with many of the witnesses first hand. They told of seeing the Menehune playing around the large trees on the lawn of the parish property, which stands directly across the street from Waimea High School today.

I highly recommend that people in Hawaii visit that site today, as an interesting point in a cryptozoological tour of the islands.

As I briefly mentioned on Coast to Coast, there was actually a census done where Menehune were counted. An anthropological study of Menehune accounts authored by Katharine Luomala and published by the Bishop Museum in 1951, noted that 165 years previously, under the reign of Kaumualii, the last independent ruler of Kauai, a census of the population of the Wainiha Valley revealed that out of 2,000 people counted by the king’s agent, 65 were Menehune. Luomala herself wondered if the little people might be a "tribe of dwarfs."

In the field guide (page 148), I also mention the accounts of Menehune-like figures, "believed to be dwarfs," from the island of Fiji, southwest of Hawaii, according to the Fiji Times of July 19, 1975. The six witnesses to a mid-afternoon encounter described seeing eight figures, two feet tall and covered with black hair, run behind some bushes and disappear.

The Menehune of Hawaii directly relate to the reports of the Hobbits of Flores, Indonesia (cover and pages xvi-xvii), and the Nittaewo of Ceylon/Sri Lanka (pages 128-129).

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Email • Facebook • Twitter •