Informant: Female/age unknown/Portuguese ancestry
Location: Lihue, Kaua’i
I used to work in a two-story office building on the bottom floor. It was converted into an optometry office from a pediatric office of a very well – loved doctor that had died. After I started working there, I would hear things coming from the upstairs part of the building.
It sounded like children. It sounded like they were running around upstairs laughing and screaming. I would hear these noises often enough to know it wasn’t my imagination.
One night I was working late, and my husband came in to drop off some dinner for me. The noise started. He said, “It sounds like there’s children playing upstairs…” It was far passed closing time. There’s no way any children would be up there.
6.22.2009
6.07.2009
Informant: Female/42/Haole
Location: Maui/New England
When I lived on Maui for a few years, I became emotionally close to a coworker. He was a local boy, and I remember him telling me his chicken skin stories about encountering weird happenings growing up on the islands. That said, we're both believers in the unexplainable. After I moved back to the mainland, this friend was killed a year later in a traffic accident in Kahului. I didn't hear the news until a month after he died, when someone emailed me the story from the Maui News. When I read the terrible news, I cried and cried. I was really distressed. This was right before I went to sleep that night.
Later, in the middle of the night, I heard a male voice calling my name. He said, "Jenn!" directly into my right ear. I definitely wasn't dreaming, because the voice woke me up out of a dead sleep. And I'd recognize that voice anywhere - it was that of my friend who had died a month earlier! I opened my eyes and froze. I felt his presence, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. I know he was just letting me know he's okay because I was so sad, but it still scared me.
5.31.2009
Informant: Male/31/Filipino ancestry
Location: Koloa, Kauai
Everyone in my family has their own rosary in a different color. My rosary is blue. We switch rooms a lot in my house, so me and my dad decided to switch. When I moved into that room, I hung my rosary over my mirror. Later that night before I was about to go to bed, I noticed that my rosary was gone. I asked everyone if they had seen it or taken it, but they all said they didn’t and that they hadn’t seen it anywhere. Not really suspecting anything strange, I just decided to go to bed.
Later that night I woke up for some reason, and I looked over at the mirror at the end of my bed. I saw my rosary. But it wasn’t on the mirror like I had put it, it was in the mirror. It was open, as if someone was wearing it around their neck. I thought, “Oh, maybe I hung it on the window above me,” so I reached up above my head expecting to feel it, but it wasn’t there. I decided to just go back to sleep.
When I woke up, the rosary wasn’t anywhere to be found. And I still haven’t found it.
4.12.2009
Informant: Male/22/ unknown ancestry
Location: Punahou School, Oahu
My story takes place about 9 years ago on the campus of Punahou School.
I was walking from the gym to the pick-up area after a school dance. At that time there was construction going on and I was just looking around the campus 'cause it was the first time that I was there that late at night (like about 11 or something like that, I don't remember anymore).
In any case, I happened to look towards the construction area and I saw this lady in white just walking through the construction yard. I thought it was strange and stared a little bit longer. However, by this time, I had reached the end of the field and could no longer see the construction area. I just wrote it off as being kinda late and the strobe lights at the dance and such.
The following Monday, I happened to mention what I thought I saw to a professor and he responded that it was just the 'white lady' who walks around campus late at night.
Since that time, I've been on campus late at night multiple times and every once in a while I still do see her.
3.29.2009
Informant: Male/20/ Japanese ancestry
Location: Hale Kahawai, UH Manoa, Oahu
I’ve lived in Hale Kahawai for two years in the same room, with the same roommate. One night while I was sleeping, I woke up to find that I couldn’t move. I was conscious, but I couldn’t move my body, and I couldn’t speak no matter how hard I tried. A week later, I woke up to a pressing sensation on my chest. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see anyone or anything on my chest, but something was pressing me.
I talked to my neighbor the next morning about what happened, and he told me that he also experienced something strange. He woke up one night to find a Hawaiian man dressed in a malo sitting on his bed. He just rolled over in bed and pretended not to see the man.
I took a look in Glen Grant’s Obake Files book, and found a similar story about choking ghosts in my dorm. The first year that I lived in Kahawai I had a bag of Hawaiian salt, and nothing strange ever happened. When I started my second year there, I didn’t have any Hawaiian salt. Maybe that had something to do with it.
3.15.2009
Informant: Male/40s/European ancestry
Location: Big Island
“Why would you take that home with you? Are you crazy?”
It might not be the wisest idea to verbally berate your doctor, but at the sight of his slightly-swollen hand, I felt the need to further drive the point home that taking home strange objects found in lava rock is never a good idea.
While on vacation to the Big Island, my doctor and his family decided to visit the volcano. While they were there, he happened to notice a gold ring sitting in a crack in the lava. He decided to take a stick and fish it out, and took it home with him.
“It’s probably just coincidence, “he said as he showed me his now-healing broken hand. But that wasn’t the only unfortunate accident that had befallen him and his family since he had taken the ring home. His daughter, while on a camping trip in the mountains, ended up breaking her leg in a freak accident.
Still, he seems content with the reasoning that it was all just an unfortunate coincidence, but I could sense a bit of wavering in his voice. Nevertheless, on 8/8/08 he decided to go back to the Big Island and return the ring to the spot that it was found. There have been no accidents since then.
But that in itself might be short-lived, since recently he decided to take the tusks from a boar carcass that he found. Maybe the next time I see him, he’ll have a new story to tell.
3.09.2009
[This article was written for the Nalo News, a community newspaper published by the Waimanalo Council of Community in the late 1970's. My uncle's mother, Mrs. Julia A.F. Enoka, wrote numerous articles on ancient Hawaiian folklore and myths. This story was written by Tracy Tengan.]
In ancient Molokai, long before the dawn of recorded history, there lived a powerful Kahuna called Maka’u. Maka’u was feared because of her great power, or mana. She lived in the area of Kaluako’i where the trees had evil spirits trapped inside them, causing them to be poisonous only on Moloka’i.
Maka’u’s powers came by her being able to release these spirits by akualele, or fireballs. Those who had the mana and could see these blue and green balls of flame spoke of their great power and destruction. When Maka’u sent one of these akualele, nothing was able to stand against it.
The people of Molokai lived in constant fear of Maka’u and finally pleaded with the rest of the kahunas to unite and battle against her. The kahunas had never united before, but decided that the reign of terror of this one evil kahuna and her evil powers had to end.
Together they travelled to Kaluako’i, to the head of Waiahewahewa Gulch, to the old heiau of Hina at the head of the spring that always was present there. Maka’u saw them coming and took her malama pu’olo (bundle of sticks from which to release her evil spirits) and prepared for battle.
When the kahunas were close enough, Maka’u commanded them to stop. As she took out the most powerful piece of wood, she began to use the chant of complete destruction. The kahunas were fearful, but continued to move forward, and then began to chant “Ho’i no’ai I kou kahu,” and “ho’i no kau me ‘oe,” which means “Go back and destroy your keeper and what you have just given to me, return to you.”
As the brilliant blue akualele was released from the stick, it heard the chant of the kahunas and returned to Maka’u. Maka’u’s eyes grew as the brilliant blue akualele began to veer and return to her. The horror that filled her was clear to all the kahunas. The blast and the blaze of the fireball sent the kahunas tumbling to the ground and the earth shook with the power of the “god’s” anger. As they recovered they saw that the spring that never failed was dried up and completely destroyed, and there was no sign of Maka’u.
The kahunas united in one last ceremony. They formed a circle around the spring and chanted. They begged Hina to forgive the destruction of the old heiau, but pleaded with her to see that the good of the people goes before any one place of worship. Even to this day, the spring is gone, the heiau is still in ruins, but the lesson of Maka’u still remains.
Tengan, Tracy (1979, February). Legends: The Legend of Kaluako'i Akualele. The Nalo News.