'Menehune' by Harry Trumbore
The Menehune are a dwarfish race mentioned in the folklore of Hawaii, and they normally fill a role pretty similar to traditional pixies or fae. They are said to be expert craftsmen, constructing ancient temple-like structures and boats. Some scholars have suggested that the Menehune are really the products of a surviving cultural memory of the previous human inhabitants of Hawaii, but this seems unlikely when faced with the evidence of the supernatural creatures' existence as presented in the below account.
The Incident[]
One day during a normal period of recess in the 1940s, a school superintendent by the name of George London and about forty-five middle elementary students stumbled upon a group of dwarfish beings that would be best described as Menehune (Hawaiian faeries). Details of this encounter are recounted by Reverend Kenneth W. Smith of several of the local churches, who spoke to the witnesses first-hand. From his testimony, it seems that the case might have occurred earlier than he remembers. The witnesses tell of seeing the Menehune playing around the large trees on the lawn of the parish property, which is directly across the street from where the Waimea High School is today. When the dwarves spotted the children, they stopped jumping in and out of the trees and dove under the parish house, seemingly into some kind of entrance. Local folklore holds that a tunnel runs from underneath that parish house all the way up to the Menehunes’ mountainous abode. The Menehune are usually described as being 2-3ft tall and having stout and muscular bodies covered in hair of unspecified colour or texture. They have big eyes set in their red-skinned face, partially hidden by long eyebrows. Their noses are short and thick, and they have protruding foreheads.