Menehune at Marine Camp

Informant: Male/64/Portuguese-Filipino ancestry 

Location: Marine Camp, Kauai

When I was around seven or right, me, my brother, my dad and his friend went to Marine Camp to fish. This area at the time was very remote, with no houses around. Even today it’s still a hard place to get to with just a bumpy dirt road. 

We had planned on staying the night, so after fishing we set up our tents and went to sleep. When we woke up in the morning, we discovered footprints all around the tents. Not just regular footprints, but prints that were only about 4 inches long. They were small, like a toddlers. And there wasn’t just one pair, there were many pairs, like many little people had been running around our tents. 

My dad’s friend, who was half Hawaiian, said nonchalantly, “Ahhh, that was menehune.”