Background

Informant is college educated and has lived on Oahu, Hawaii for their whole life. Informant was dating the Interviewer’s mother for around a year. 

Context

Informant discusses a superstition about taking meat over the Pali, the possible consequences, and where the legend stems from.

Transcript

Informant: “You’re not supposed to take pork over the Pali [highway on Oahu].”

Interviewer: “Do you know why?”

Informant: “So, I forget. But they say that your car will stall if you go over they Pali, but it got something to do with warrior being pushed off the edge? Or something like that? Or the sacrifices that were made? Something to do with that, they had the war right over there and they just pushed the warriors over the Pali. They were just throwing them off the Pali, King kamehameha. Imua. There’s a reason behind it.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I heard there was also like, this thing where on the old Pali, that if you broke these rules, these like bloody ghost warriors would run at your car and try to make you crash or something.”

Informant: “Oh jeez, I don’t know about that one, that’s probably just the old Pali highway, but no one uses it now.”

Thoughts

The pali highway is situated beside a mountain where a very famous Hawaiian battle took place. King Kamehameha, the ali’i who united all the Hawaiian islands, defeated the reigning monarch of Oahu at this mountain by cornering his warriors and pushing them off the mountain. The spirits of these fallen warriors not only haunt the place where they died, but patrol the island in military formation. These spirits are known as night marchers, and will kill anyone who looks at their sacred marches. This legend and pulley legend scare me to no end, but I’m a vegetarian so I never have meat in my car so I never have to worry about it.