The season of spooks and chicken-skin moments has arrived! Halloween in Hawai‘i is full of wonder, mystery, legends, and ghost stories. On camping trips growing up, we all remember hearing about the Night Marchers for the first time and we could have sworn seeing the light of torches and hearing distant chanting at one time or another.
Maybe it’s hard to recall exactly who we heard it from first, but everyone knows to never mess with Pele, the Goddess of Fire. We were warned not to bring pork across the Pali Highway after listening to stories about the mysterious and haunting incidents that befell those who did.
And haven’t you been haunted by the obake and bakemono of Japanese folklore? One of Hawai‘i’s commanding ghost storytellers, Glen Grant, remarked in his book, Obake Files: Ghostly Encounters in Supernatural Hawai‘i, “I thought about the presence that I had felt at my right shoulder during the ceremony and held back my tears, as we drove through the mystic Kohala night under the lunar bow. From that time forward, I realized that I could never look upon the supernatural tales that I was gathering in a wholly objective light.”
Whether or not you believe in ghosts or supernatural entities, we can all recall a moment in our lives that made us wonder.
It seems as though historic buildings and scary ghost stories go hand in hand with one another. Over the years, Historic Hawai‘i Foundation’s staff has heard of ghostly activity in our office building in the Dole Cannery and at other historic places in Hawai‘i (to remain unnamed!) that send shivers down our spine.
Halloween may be different this year, but one way you can still get your fill of spooky stories is by local master storyteller, Lopaka Kapanui. His “Ghost Stories of Hawai‘i” podcast is sure to give you chicken skin: https://www.honolulumagazine.com/lopaka-kapanui-shares-3-ghost-stories-of-hawaii. Lopaka also hosts various walking tours: Urban Legends, Night Marchers’, Ghosts of Old Honolulu, and Waikīkī Night Marchers. Due to COVID restrictions, there is a 4-person limit per tour. To learn more, click here: https://mysteries-of-hawaii.com/tours.
Honolulu Magazine’s website also shares a great list of chilling stories, many of which are place-based: https://www.honolulumagazine.com/search/ghost+stories.
We wish you a safe and Spook-tastic Halloween!
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
William Shakespeare