There are no stories of the Me-ne-hu-ne in the Fornander Collection.
Fornander uses the name, but only as implying the very early people of
the Islands. According to W. D. Alexander the name Me-ne-hu-ne is
applied in Tahiti to the lowest class of people.
The account of the Me-ne-hu-ne that I give is taken from two
sources—from Mr. William Hyde Rice’s Hawaiian Legends, published by the
Bishop Museum, and from Mr. Thomas Thrum’s Stories of the Menehunes,
published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. I am indebted to Mr. Rice
for the part that treats of the history of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and to Mr.
Thrum for the two stories, “Pi’s Watercourse” and “Laka’s Adventure.”
Beginning with “The Me-ne-hu-ne,” I have treated the stories as if they
were being told to a boy by an older Hawaiian. I have imagined them
both as being with a party who have gone up into the highlands to cut
sandalwood. That would be in the time of the first successors of
Kamehameha, when the sandalwood of the islands was being cut down for
exportation to China, “the land of the Pa-ke.” As the party goes down
the mountain-side the boy gathers the ku-kui or candle-nuts for
lighting the house at night.
THE STORY OF MO-E MO-E: ALSO A STORY ABOUT PO-O AND ABOUT KAU-HU-HU THE
SHARK-GOD, AND ABOUT MO-E MO-E’S SON, THE MAN WHO WAS BOLD IN HIS WISH
The story of Opele, who came to be called Mo-e Mo-e, is given in the
Fornander Collection, Vol. V, Part I, of the Memoirs of the Bernice
Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title He Kaao no Opelemoemoe, Legend of
Opelemoemoe; the story about Po-o is given in the Memoirs of the
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Vol. V, Part III (the stories in this
volume do not belong to the Fornander Collection); the story about the
Shark-God is taken from an old publication of the Islands, the Maile
Quarterly; the story of the Man who was Bold in his Wish is given in
the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of the
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao no Kalelealuaka a Me
Keinohoomanawanui, the Legend of Kalelealuaka and Keinohoomanawanui.