The Marchers Of The Night -- Beware As Hawaiian Gods And Ghosts Go On Parade

Every Hawaiian has heard of the "Marchers of the Night," Ka huaja`i o ka Po. A few have seen the procession. It is said that such sight is fatal unless one has a relative among the dead to intercede for him. If a man is found stricken by the roadside a white doctor will pronounce the cause as heart failure, but a Hawaiian will think at once of the fatal night march.

The time for the march is between half after 7 when the sun has actually set and about 2 in the morning before the dawn breaks . . .

Those who took part in the march were the chiefs and warriors who had died, the `aumakua, and the gods . . . If a living person met these marchers it beehoved him to get out of the way as quickly as possible, otherwise he might be killed unless he had an ancestor or an `aumakua in the procession to plead for his life. . . .

Mrs. Emma Akana Olmstead tells me that when she was told as a child about the marchers of the night she was afraid, but now that she is older and can herself actually hear them she is no longer terrified.

She hears beautiful loud chanting of voices, the high notes of the flute and drumming so loud that it seems beaten upon the side of the house beside her bed. Their voices are so distinct that if she could write music she would be able to set down the notes they sing. By the late Mary Pukui, who, during a 50-year-association with the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, collected Hawaiian oral traditions, legends, chants and ghost stories. This excerpt is from "The Night Marchers," originally published in "Kepelino's Traditions of Hawaii," edited by Martha Beckwith. It is included in the "Chicken Skin: True Spooky Stories of Hawai`i," edited by Rick Carroll (The Bess Press, Honolulu, $9.95), due in October.