Helemano, Oahu Hawaii

Source: University of Hawaii -Manoa Student Folklore Project, 1973
Informant: Filipino-American male, 25-year-old found giant footprint in Helemano, Oahu, Hawaii
Known in Wahiawa, Hawaii - "Aikanaka" means "the Man-eater of Oahu" in Hawaiian

When the "Aikanaka legends" first became part of the Obake Files, a search was then made through
the older materials collected a decade before which linked Wahiawa to strange, unnatural beings.

Two such stories surfaced which had been collected in the 1970s that revealed island oddities on a scale equal to that of the Pacific Northwest's "Bigfoot."

The Filipino informant worked for Dole Pineapple Company in the early 1960s as an irrigation crew member. During the planting season, his crew often worked in 24-hour shifts in staggered hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. They were working in the Helemano section of the pineapple fields at about 2 a.m., moving huge sprinklers into position for irrigation.

As he was walking in the dark across a section of the field, he suddenly tripped and fell into a shallow hole. When he got up, he called his co-workers to verify what he had found.

"When we looked at the hole," he recalled, "we saw that it was a great big footprint. I swear we measured the thing. It came out to about three feet! Anyone who has a foot a yard long must be a real big man?

After telling this incident to older workers, he was told that some of the men had seen a giant walking through the pineapple fields in the Helemano section. They always had thought it was a spirit that haunted the place where an old pineapple camp had been.

The informant was evidently unaware that the giant man and footprint had been seen in the old stomping grounds of Aikanaka, renowned for his giant stature, although legend does not record his foot size.

© The Obake Files: Encounters in Supernatural Hawaii, - Glen Grant, 1996-1999
University of Hawaii -Manoa Student Folklore Project, 1973

Source: Nick Sucik, Hawaii 2000