The Hawaiian Legends Index was originally created in 1950 by Mrs. Lillian Ching, a librarian in the Hawaiʻi & Pacific Section of the Hawaiʻi State Library. It was a card index file that other librarians added to as new anthologies of legends were published. In 1976, these index cards were photocopied and published by the Hawaii Library Association as a bound book to increase access to this unique resource.

That first publication was followed up in 1989 with a new index, revised and edited by Dr. Masae Gotanda of the Hawaiʻi State Library, so that each entry was a discrete computer record. It was printed as a three-volume set and distributed to all public and school libraries.

In 2004 the Hawaiian Legends Index was published on the Hawaiʻi & Pacific Section’s website as a link to an Excel table, making it basically searchable. This revised and updated version of the index added over 1,000 new entries from twenty-six Hawaiian legend anthologies and owed much of its success to the work of David Del Rocco, a librarian in the Hawaiʻi & Pacific Section.

In 2010, Dore Minatodani of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa approached the Hawaiʻi State Library with the proposition of taking our 2004 index and making it available online as a searchable database. There would be an Advanced Search option for more powerful searching, as well as links to digitized full-text versions of the legends when available. The Hawaiian Legends Index went online on October 10, 2012 as an open access resource through the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

In 2025, control of the Hawaiian Legends Index database was transferred from the University of Hawaiʻi to the Hawaiʻi & Pacific Section of the Hawaiʻi State Library. We plan to continue updating and adding to this database regularly.

Please note that a conscious decision was made to leave out Hawaiian diacritics (ʻokina and kahakō) in the index because they do not always translate from one digital program to another, and because it causes some difficulty in sorting alphabetically.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even though this is called the Hawaiian Legends Index, some legends from other parts of Polynesia are included.

As always, the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System is grateful for the many hours spent on perfecting this index by various staff members over the years. We are also indebted to the work of Dore Minatodani in setting up the online database that we currently use.

Linda Sueyoshi
Kathryn Arinaga
Hannah Loo
Hawaiʻi & Pacific Section
Hawaiʻi State Library
December 2025