Informant: My informant, D.L., is 20 and was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. D.L. mother works as an admissions director for his high school. He has one older brother who also attends USC. Both of D.L. parents are full Chinese, but have completely adopted the Hawaiian culture. D.L. spends most of his free time at the beach and considers himself more Hawaiian than Chinese.

Folklore: “There is a rule in Hawaii that you’re not supposed to whistle at night. The night marchers are ghosts of ancient Hawaiian warriors and they’re said to roam the islands at night visiting old battlefields and sacred sites. Whistling at night is said to summon the huakai po (night marchers). If you make eye contact with the night marchers, you’ll die and be forced to march with them for all of eternity. If you happen to have an ancestor marching, however, no one in the procession can harm you.” D.L. was told this story from one of his teachers in elementary school to try and scare the kids in his class as a joke. D.L. doesn’t actually believe in the myth and thinks of it as just a story to scare kids.

Analysis: This myth is more of a ghost story that sounds familiar to a story I heard when I was growing up. I look at this myth as just a scary story and nothing more.

For more information on the myth, see http://www.to-hawaii.com/legends/night-marchers.php