11.13.2011

Menehune of Mililani Mauka

Informant: Male/Age unknown/ Japanese Ancestry 
Location: Mililani Mauka, Oahu

I am hoping by sharing this story, other folks in Mililani Mauka will share their stories. There is definitely something going on up here but I can’t seem to find any history, tales, fact or fiction supporting my experiences up here.

My family and I moved into a brand new home in Kapanoe, a subdivision at the top of Mililani Mauka, about six years ago. My son, now eight, was two at the time. Many nights at around 2 am, he would call out for me and I would wearily go to his room, hop in bed with him where we would both fall asleep. One night, after calling for me, he pointed to a corner of his room and asked, “Daddy, who’s that?” I am actually blind but, needless to say, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood straight up. The next night, I permanently moved into his bedroom.

Over the next month or so, my son would regularly awaken around 2 am, sit up, and stare at this particular corner of his room. He described what he saw to me as a boy that looked like a little man. One night, I asked my son if the little man-boy was telling him anything. My son replied, “Yeah, he’s putting his finger to his lips and telling me ‘Shhh.’” That was it – I called a kahu to bless the house, which he did, and planted a couple dozen ti leaves all around the house. 

Over the years, my son gradually saw less and less of this little man-boy but would still occasionally wake up at around 2 am and jump into bed with me as I was, and still am, sleeping in his room. Although these appearances diminished, I couldn’t help but notice that, even with our windows closed, shutters would open and doors would slam. Could this little man-boy be a menehune just trying to befriend my son and play pranks on me? For the longest time, I didn’t bring this up with anyone except for a few family members and friends who I knew wouldn’t laugh at me. 

One day this past Summer, for some reason, while talking to a former neighbor who was visiting, I mentioned this little man-boy spirit or ghost to him and I could tell from his reaction that he knew exactly what I was talking about. He shared how, when he lived in the neighborhood and had a sleep-over birthday party for his son, one of the boys was woken and startled by this very same little man-boy, got freaked out, and insisted his parents pick him up right then and there … at 2:00 a.m. 
Then, just a few weeks ago, a neighbor across the street mentioned how his young son woke up one night at around 2 am and saw something little walking up the stairs toward his room. And to top all of these encounters off, the day after Halloween, I bumped into my new next door neighbors who embarrassingly laughed and asked if I knew about any ghosts or menehune in the neighborhood. I froze, dropped my jaw, got chicken skin up and down both arms and on the back of my neck … “Why?” I asked. The husband replied, "because our two-year old was talking to someone last night and when we asked who it was, she said a little boy. … and when we asked if the little boy said anything, our two-year old simply put her finger to her lips and said, ‘hush’”.

11 comments:

seal'd said...

I used to work in construction that built those new homes at Millikan mauka. It was the only time ever that I had such 'weird' feelings while working. In particular was a house on the gulch side, I was working upstairs in the closet, bathroom, and bedroom in the same area, but the hairs on my arm stood straight up, goosebumps everywhere, and just the feeling of a presence watching me... I never felt that creeped out before while working, and I ran downstairs in a flash, my foreman looked at me and smirked as if he knew too what just happened.
Well months later, at work during lunch the topic was about how new home owners at Mililani mauka were reporting their lights acting weird and doorbells ringing for no reason, but when checked out, everything was fine? And then another worker who talked to some of the new homeowners said that their little kid seem to have aquired an imaginary friend... instinctively Im sure I know which houses had those problems.

Anonymous said...

I remember a local story teller having a bunch of stories about Mililani Mauka. He hinted that that area had a lot of spirits.
One story that stood out was about this mother who got off work early and decided to go home first to rest before she went to pick up her daughter from school.
when she got home, her daughter was already there. she was surprised to see her and asked if she walked home from school. her daughter was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, her hair a mess and she was all dirty . she only grunted at her mom's question. The mother noticed that her daughter was acting strange and wondered how she got so dirty . she asked her daughter a few more questions to which her daughter only grunted.
at this time her phone rang and she answered. It was her daughter asking her when she was going to pick her up from school. horrified at the sudden realization that it was not her daughter that was sitting at the table the mother quickly turned to see what this thing was. It was no longer there.

Kateri said...

Wow, that last comment gave me chicken skin!!

Anonymous said...

I just typed my entire experience and it was lost. Anyway heres the short version. I saw two of these in my house when I wss 6 years old in Hawaii. Im 30 next month. There real

Anonymous said...

I work for UPS and deliver up there all the time. I was thinking out buying a house up there, especially up. T Kapanoe. I think I'll stay where I'm at in Honolulu. Lol.

Bousheyy said...

It's believed the reason there is no trace of facts or stories regarding these occurrences is because Mililani was all open fields of sugar and pineapple before the first houses were built in the late 60s. I lived in the southern part of Mililani about 16 years ago when I was five, up until I was about 7. My house was on the other side of H-2 than Mililani mauka was located, down by Mililani Uka elementary. Although my parents or siblings never talked about seeing a little boy, or anything near level of paranormal, a lot of weird stuff happened in that house. Things would fall on their own, and no matter how stable it was set back up again it would end up suddenly falling again a few days later, oftentimes right in front of my brother or mother. My older brother said he would sometimes hear something like the door open and shut in the other room, and when he went to look, obviously, nobody would be there. My mom said sometimes she swore things would move on their own, and sometimes she would turn a corner and stop suddenly because it literally felt like she was about to bump into somebody. Although nobody was ever there, she swore she felt a presence, however it would only be for an instant. My sister who was 2 at the time would sometimes wake up making a choking sound too. After living in 3 more houses after that we concluded over the years that there was definitely something haunting the house. I went looking for some type of reason that house would've been haunted but I see now that the whole area has had some far more chilling experiences. Aside from that, my personal guess now is that the phenomena is due to spirits originating from the land itself. With a story that likely goes farther back than half a century, that's why there's nothing to make sense of all of it. :)

Unknown said...

I remember when my uncle would tell me a story that was true that occurred in his family. He said that one of his cousins were playing outside in the backyard which was right by a jungle in Guam. His cousin noticed that their was a little man telling him to follow him. His cousin ran inside and told his mom about it. The mom was so shocked because she knew what is was and told him to stay inside and lock the doors. I got goosebumps from this because it was so spooky at the time

Unknown said...

When I was 6 years old I got to see one. I lived in Waikiki, 1 night around 8-9 pm I was in the kids room with my sister and 2 brothers which were 7,8, & 10 years old. They where playing Uno on the floor while I was jumping on the bed, a few feet away was a window that of course was open to catch the ocean breeze. I heard some giggling from outside the window and my attention was focused on it when a small brown face was pressed into the window screen, it was small but looked like a old man, then it began to laugh a deep creepy laugh. Which was way different than the child like giggling I heard right before I seen it's face. My sister screamed terrified!! And we all ran into the living room for our parents and grandparents

Anonymous said...

A friend who lived in Oahu told me a story about how one night, she was sleeping with her new baby in a cradle next to the bed. She was having restless dreams, and awoke to see a little trollish man standing at the foot of the bed watching her. There was a pillow placed over her baby.

In 2008, my friend and I experienced a very weird phenomenon in Kalalau Valley. We arrived late and the only place we could find to place our tent for the night was adjacent to the Heiau. I "knew" it was too close to the sacred site, but it was getting dark so we popped up our tent next to the rock walls. There were no other humans around, and we were completely surrounded by low shrubs and rocks. All night long, some little thing kept harrassing us...tapping us hard on the head or arm through the tent any time our bodies touched the edge of the tent. There were no sounds of footsteps or bushes rustling, but every time we got close to the edge of the tent, we got a hard thump from whatever it was out there. Kalalau has goats and hippies, but no rodents, lizards, ground dwelling birds, or other animals that would invest so much time in bothering us on that sacred ceremonial ground. It was definitely something odd!

Kaʻiwaālaimaka said...

Shame on you sleeping at a heiau, have some respect.

Kaʻiwaālaimaka said...

These experiences don’t sound like menehune to me. While many people incorrectly associate menehune as being like Hawaiian leprechauns, similar in size to dwarfs, that description contradicts both historical description and the many people who have had experiences. Menehune actually arent child sized, you definitely won’t mistake them for a child, they’re VERY small, maybe around 6 inches in height and often first get mistaken as a rat or mouse that someone sees out of the corner of their eye, until it stops and they get a better look at them. They don’t look like small children, they look like adults and are proportionate, in frame, to an adult, however very very small. Also, there seems to be a lot of children witnessing this entity, but not adults… menehune show themselves to adults just as often (if not more often) than they do to children. Typical stories of menehune will be experiences witnessed by many members of a family, not just one person… remember that they can be mischievous, so they appear to like to “mess” with multiple people in a home & Ive never heard of them being afraid to be discovered… afraid of being hurt, yes, but not discovered, so it seems off that it’s telling children to “shhh” or “hush”.

What you described, sounds more like an evil entity, I don’t say the word… but it’s 5 letters and starts with a D. These entities are known to disguise themselves as children in order to gain children’s trust or make adults feel less threatened. I would be careful if I were you.

Kudos to you for sleeping in your child’s room, I wish more parents would take their child’s fears more seriously like you did, most parents would tell their kids it’s their imagination and to just go back in their rooms and sleep… you’re a good dad.