Allan Kroll, 1977

“Five or six of us were sitting by the campfire one night, it’s late—it’s like two in the morning—and we hear chanting coming from up valley where no one lives. We’d heard this Hawaiian chanting one other time late at night. We thought it must be the menehune, ancestors of the original Hawaiians that were here before the Tahitians invaded, little people that now live in secret valleys and hide from everybody. They only come out at night; they do all their work at night and they finish every project before sunrise.”

 

“The menehune are master stonemasons; they built fishponds, trails, and ditches all around Kauai. They were a race of much shorter Hawaiian people but then they kind of disappeared. They still might be here—on Kauai, hiding in a valley deep in the mountains not far from here. On some nights a light would come bouncing down the trail and light up the wall outside my house. Some people could see it but a number of people couldn’t see it, though it was as bright as the moon and red. It was a good spirit and so I was never afraid of that spirit too much. I tried not to freak myself about it. I didn’t really consider myself that spiritual a person, the kind of person that would have these extraordinary experiences, you know I mean, to see things that you don’t even believe in is like when you have to believe in them.” — Allan Kroll