Kapiolani Community College
Spectrum 2000

Hawai`i is a place of myths and legends. Wherever you travel on this tropical paradise, you will find some kind of mythical story. The stories range anywhere from night marchers and menehune, to the all popular concept of the haunted house. Many of these tales are based on a certain amount of superstition. In addition, the stories themselves could be based on actual facts, but the details of those events have been often times remade with each retelling. Morgan's Corner is a place with one such story. The tale is widely known throughout local culture and there are currently many versions and rumors surrounding the tale. The tale in essence began as a superstition. Someone just told a scary story that got way out of hand. However, I feel that it is the dark side of human nature that impels many people to believe in places and events revolving around superstition. They use superstitions such as ghost stories, urban legends, witchcraft, and religion to somehow explain the inexplicable.

A superstition can be one of many things (Vyse). A superstition is defined as an opinion based on bad judgment that normally leads to actions with dire consequences. However, a superstition can also take form as an urban legend. Other times, a superstition can just be a rumor foretelling misfortune. A superstition can originate even in religion. In any case, many people throughout the world believe in superstitions. Many celebrities often times have good luck charms and follow certain procedures to ensure continued success (De Groot). Quite a number of athletes go through a routine before every performance that is based on superstition. However, the people that follow superstitions most of all are everyday people like you and me. We avoid walking under ladders and breaking mirrors to avoid bad luck. Why do we believe such trite nonsense? Many of the people who believe superstitions have a desire to put their faith into something material. After all, most people would agree that much of their life is based on beliefs and practices that have foundations on sheer faith. By believing in some sort of superstition, they take all the bad things that the world may send their way and package them into convenient uncommon situations that hardly ever occur. I feel that for many individuals, superstition is used to explain what we as a society do not yet comprehend. In many ways, superstitions resemble many of the bad things that we as human beings encompass in ourselves.

Morgan's Corner is a very good example of an area based on superstition. The corner is located on O'ahu in an area called the Pali. The historic Pali cliffs is the location of a great event that took place involving King Kamehameha the Great (Legends of Hawai`i). Kamehameha engaged in war with other island chiefs in an attempt to unite the island chain. Enemy warriors were thrown over its steep cliffs.

Today, the Pali is a place of rumor and superstition. Morgan's Corner is just one of many places that are claimed to be haunted in the Pali mountains. Before the Pali Highway, which connects Honolulu to Windward O`ahu was built, the only way across these mountains was by a twisting road now called Old Pali Road. It is a dark street with no streetlights and harbors few residential areas. The road itself is only about three miles long. A tunnel of trees covers almost the entire stretch of the road. Morgan's Corner is a hairpin turn approximately halfway through this road. The location of the corner itself provides the perfect setting for a superstition.

To fully grasp the superstitious qualities associated with Morgan's Corner, one must know the story that many locals associate with the area. Although there are various versions of the tale, this version is prominent in most retellings. According to Glen Grant, one night in late summer, a young couple drove to the corner to engage in making out. The boy was in the driver's seat and the girl was in the passenger's seat. That night, the weather was rainy and humid. They had parked under a gigantic tree so that the car would be a little more sheltered from the rain. It was already 11 pm when they arrived. They had made out for a few hours and decided that it was getting late and the best course of action would be to head back home. However, when the boy started the car, the engine made funny noises and refused to start. The boy went out to check the engine but could find nothing wrong. He decided that he should walk into town and go to the nearest gas station and ask for help. He told the girl to wait in the car for him and that he would be back shortly. After waiting for a while, the girl eventually got tired and fell asleep. During the night, she awoke to the sound of rain dripping and the scraping of branches on the roof of the car. She paid it no mind and fell back asleep.

When she awoke, it was already the next day. The first thing she saw was a police officer telling her to get out of the car. There were a lot of police cars around the area and she wondered what happened. She opened the door and the police officer pulled her out of the car not letting her turn around. They asked her why she was out there and what had happened. She told them how she and her boyfriend had made out the night before and how the car would not start and that her boyfriend had gone into town to get help. He then told her not to look back. However, her curiosity got the better of her and she decided to see what this was all about. When she turned around, she was horrified. It was not the rain coming down on the car the night before, but the blood of her boyfriend who had been hung above the car. His wrists had been sliced and his body gutted from head to groin. What she had thought were branches scraping on the car roof were the fingers of her boyfriend blowing in the wind. His ankles had been tied to the large branch that stood over the car. Rumor has it that if you hug the trunk of the tree on which he was hung at midnight and look up, you will be unable to let go, and will see the boyfriend's face looking down at you from the treetops (Chicken Skin 169-173).

Many consider the story of Morgan's Corner to be an urban legend. An urban legend is just another form of a superstition. It is a story that has been repeated throughout the years by word of mouth (Urban Legends). Many times, urban legends are based on factual information, but have been modified constantly through each retelling of the story. They are in many ways comparable to tall tales. Almost always, the events of urban legends happened to a friend of a friend. This is one of the worst ways to hear a story. When a story comes from a third hand source, it is almost always false. In actuality, the tale of Morgan's Corner is very similar to a common urban legend that can be found in almost every state in the U.S. It is so popular that it was even featured in the motion picture, Urban Legend. There are many variations on the story everywhere throughout the world. In Hawai`i, there are many different versions of the Morgan's Corner story alone.

Just because the legend of Morgan's Corner is surrounded in superstition, it does not mean that the tale has no factual relevance to the location. Remember that many times, urban legends are tales based on real events. Through my research, I have found the real basis for the story of Morgan's Corner (Burlingame 89). In the 1920's there was a doctor by the name of James Morgan who built a villa on Pali Road right on a sharp hairpin turn, which was a very bad commuter slowdown. Thus, it claimed the name Morgan's Corner. Dr. Morgan's neighbor was Therese Wilder. In 1948, two prison escapees James Majors and John Palakiko invaded the home of Therese Wilder. The 68-year-old woman was unable to defend herself against the two 20-year-old men. They assaulted, tortured, and eventually hanged her. The two were caught and charged with the murder. They were found guilty and were sentenced to hang in late September of 1951. They had been shackled and were walking down the long halls of the prison, when Governor Oren Long stopped the execution due to the public demand. The public felt that the men were being executed for the simple fact that they were not white. Palakiko and Majors would have been the last people to be executed in the state of Hawai'i. They were both paroled in 1963 and later had only minor confrontations with the law. John Palakiko died mysteriously some time later and the whereabouts of James Majors are unknown. These historic events provided the basis for what started the superstitions surrounding the area known as Morgan's Corner. The events were modified by superstition to fit into the model of what would be considered to be appealing to the darker side of human nature.

Another example of a historic superstition would be the Salem Witch Hunts. During periods in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, many women were accused of being witches (Witchcraft). These women were normal townspeople who had, up to that point, led very normal lives. During this time in history, there were many superstitions going around and for many, it seemed reasonable to believe that a woman could be a witch. A woman was often accused of witchcraft when children would accuse her of performing unusual rituals upon them. Many of the women accused were using herbal remedies and special techniques taught to them by Native Americans to heal the children. The people of the town would more often than not see this as a sort of curse or representation of bad luck. Their fear made them believe that the woman, who was accused of being a witch, was a danger to the town. The people of the town simply did not understand any of the practices that the women were using and it frightened them. The only explanation that they had for many natural phenomenons, such as medical recoveries by herbs, was that a witch caused it. Since science had not been perfected at this time, people around the world would constantly rely on superstition as a way to divulge the truth. Women who were accused of witchcraft were taken to court with trials that were amazingly swift, lasting not more than one week at a time. If convicted of the crime, they would be hanged in a public setting, burned on a cross, or drowned in freezing cold water. Women accused of witchcraft almost always were found guilty. There was little factual evidence to prove that they were not witches, and at that time, superstition was so prominent that they could be convicted of this crime on those grounds.

In this type of setting, superstition can be very dangerous. The Salem Witch Hunts led to many people accusing their own neighbors of witchcraft. It was a situation in which superstition and fear were allowed to get out of control. The accusations of these children led to innocent people being hanged in the area of the original U. S. colonies. In this case, superstitions led to actions that were born from very bad judgment.

Even with very bad examples of how superstition can get out of hand, there are also many ways that superstitions have positively affected our culture. In many ways, the many religions that we practice can be considered superstitions. For instance, let's play with the notion of the existence of God. It has been documented that over 99% of the world's population believes in some sort of higher force that leads our lives in a certain direction (Edelen). There is no proof for this; however, there is a significant number of people who place their faith in something or someone that no one can prove exists. To some people, this concept makes absolutely no sense; however, to many people, it does. Many people also feel that there is life after death. Christians believe in the concepts of Heaven and Hell (Kindersley). The idea that the good go to paradise and the bad go to Satan's hole sounds farfetched to anyone who may come into contact with Christianity for the first time. Who can prove exactly what happens after you die? The answer is plain and simple. There is no way to tell if there is a Heaven or Hell. Since there is no factual basis for this belief, it can quite literally be considered a superstition. However, it is not just any superstition. It is a superstition that so many people have faith in. Therefore, many people no longer question the superstitious qualities of which the religion is based on.

In many religions, the center of faith is often some sort of figure who was believed to be similar in status as God. People take up faith because they know that they are not perfect and want to make themselves comparable to the person at the center of the faith by following his/her teachings. I feel that that is also one of the reasons that many people turn to religion, a type of superstition, in times of great need. They turn to a higher power because they want to believe that there is still hope for them. Many times, their faith in God actually saves them from what could have possibly been a disastrous end. It is not exactly the faith that saves them, but the motivation that the faith brings to them. Their faith is an invisible force that propels them to change their lives for the better. So in a way, the faith does help to change their lives.

Another example of religious superstition would be the Holy Bible. There are many larger-than-life stories contained within its pages. Many people are alleged to have contributed to the making of the book, but it is not known for certain if they really did help to write the Bible. For all anyone knows, it could have been some unknown person who wrote the Bible. The Bible is the book that the religion of Christianity is based upon. If it is proven that the Bible is not factual, then what does that say about the faith? People rely on faith, another type of superstition, to see truth behind what would normally be seen as a story. Again, superstition is prevalent in Hawaiian culture. Many residents of Hawai`i believe in spirits and follow many other superstitions that they may have adopted throughout the years. Since Hawai`i has such a mixture of cultures, there are often many mixtures of beliefs and ideas. Many locals have taken in the belief of life after death, the existence of ghosts, and a mixture of concepts from each individual culture of every ethnicity that inhabits the islands. The idea of Morgan's Comer is just one of many ways that superstition remains active in today's modernized world.

In the end, it just comes down to the way that a person's mind naturally functions. I feel that the dark side of a human nature will always tempt people to use superstition as a way to explain the inexplicable. I think that it is unavoidable by any means. Even with the development of science, people will just not give up hold of the world of superstitions. People need stories like that of Morgan's Corner or the Bible to make life more interesting. Other times, people just need reasons to explain what is happening to them. They want to find some explanation for what is happening, but if there is no scientific basis for it, the human mind will almost always turn to superstition as a medium for explanation. Even though we no longer have events totally based on superstition, such as the Salem Witch Hunts, many of our daily routines still hold superstition in focus. Coincidences in life may occur, and many will continue to label them in a superstitious manner. With the arrival of many new ideas and discoveries of different life forms, it is just a matter of time before human nature will kick into gear and superstition will be once again used as the tool for explaining the inexplicable.