Keep It Pono - Classic

If you live in Hawaii, you know that if you see the ancient Night Marchers of the King’s Guard, you bow in reverence. And you don’t look them in the eye, under any circumstances. But Obake, Dee, and Joe Bones? They haven’t learned this lesson… yet.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Glynn Washington?

  Remember, ignorance is never an excuse. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:55Glynn Washington?

  I imagine how he decided to give it to me. Probably smiled to himself, thinking, it's the only way to make sure that boy shows up on time. And it was beautiful to me.

• 1:09Glynn Washington?

  Wrapped in the parchment paper with his neat handwriting. For my nappy-headed grandbaby.

• 1:17Glynn Washington?

  His pocket watch. The one he always carried around. I think he gave the chain to somebody else, but I get the watch.

• 1:26Glynn Washington?

  Beautiful. Hamilton.

• 1:29Glynn Washington?

  I remember watching him polish it until it shone.

• 1:33Glynn Washington?

  So I polish it until it shines as well.

• 1:37Glynn Washington?

  And I imagine him saying, now that's how you do it. Everything can only be done one way with him. What's the way we do it, boy? The right way? That's right. Do things the right way. You can't go wrong. I must forget from now, as it was then. That's why I never carry granddaddy's watch with me. I'll lose it, break it, but I know me. No way I can let that happen. Instead, I keep it hidden. Squirtled away in my special spot. So imagine my shock when I reach my hand into the bottom of my sock drawer.

• 2:18Glynn Washington?

  And it's not there. And only after frantically ripping apart the entire dresser do I understand that I have been robbed.

• 2:28Glynn Washington?

  A ring, a frame, and my grandfather's watch stolen, and I'm sick. Sick. How dare someone put their filthy hands on something Batman gave to me? That's not a watch to me. It's him. It's a piece of him. And see, everything I own is scuffed, it's torn, it's chipped, it's broken, my bike, my jeans, my shoes. But I'll be goddamn that watch sparkle. At least that, because you polish it the right way.

• 3:07Glynn Washington?

  So I holler, I scream, I plot my revenge. I want the person who took it to pay. I want them to suffer. Then I think about someone else holding a piece of my grandfather in their nasty pocket, and I know.

• 3:24Glynn Washington?

  I know with every fiber of my being, I know that they will suffer.

• 3:35Glynn Washington?

  They will indeed.

• 3:38Glynn Washington?

  Spook starts now.

• 4:07Glynn Washington?

  Now, spooksters, we are so lucky today because we're traveling back to paradise. And I bet you thought we'd only take you to Hawaii once, am I right? Well, know that we spare zero expense at Spooked. And if we're gonna go back to those white sand beaches and dip our toes into the turquoise water, because there's a story we gotta get, well, sometimes you have to suffer for the truth. But in this case, make no mistake, understand, there is darkness in paradise.

• 4:43Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  I lived on the windward side of the island. You know, being very tired from work, I would sit down and maybe have a beer or two. And one night, I'm doing that, and I have a friend of mine with me. We're just sitting around out in the yard in front of the house, Dee and my brother JJ. And we're just kind of like shooting the breeze and talking. When all of a sudden, this car comes just screeching down the street. And it just pulls up in the back of Dee's car. So we all kind of like stand up really fast. And we look in the direction of this car. My friend, we call him Joe Bones, just, you know, threw the door open and came out. He's only wearing shorts, and he's got this look of sheer terror. His eyes were just huge.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  And at first, he has a hard time talking. And so I go up there and say, Joe, hey, what's going on? You know, I mean, is everything all right? We call people like him Calabash cousin. He's not family, kind of like adopted in a way. But, you know, he's, you know, he's very close to my family. And finally, he's able to, to say that we had to go to his house. And we had to go there right away. And he was insistent on that and kept repeating himself about that. Something had gone on at his house that he had just moved into. You know, I'm thinking, wow, how big is this? I get into the car with my friend. We're sitting in the front seat. My cousin and my brother jump into the backseat.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  We got about 15 minutes to get to the location itself. As soon as we get onto the highway, Joel starts to describe why he came to see us. He really starts just unloading. And that was scaring me because the words and everything were coming out so fast. He begins to tell us he had just moved into this house, which is near a place called Kauai Nui Marsh. He was moving in with his girlfriend, and he was very, very happy about the circumstance. In the back of the house, there's this big plegmeria tree. Filled with these beautiful flowers as well. People use them to make leis.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  And so the first day they're in the house, they start to unpack.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  That evening, they start to hear

• 7:28Speaker 02

  from out of nowhere the beating of drums, what we call in Hawaii pahu. And it just kept building and building up. And it sounded like it was everywhere, like outside of the house, around them, and everything. It's coming from the back of the house, and the only thing that's back there is that marsh. And he took a good look at that marsh. There's no houses. There's nothing there. And so eventually, the drumming stops. Joe said, they call it a night, and then they go to bed. The next day, he goes to the back of the house, and he looks around. And that beautiful plegmeria tree that was there is now dead.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Shriveled up. The flowers are gone, and the tree is wilted. And he looked underground, and there were these footprints. That come up to the tree and go around the tree and then go off again, off into the distance. Something is definitely not right with this situation. He's very, very scared. He goes back into the house.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  The sun goes down. He just wants things to be normal.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Driving down the highway, you could hear the fear in every single word that came out of his mouth. When he was saying, I know I'm not crazy. I know what I saw is real, and I just need you folks to be there. I need you to tell me that this actually is happening.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And he was telling us, as the night goes on and everything goes quiet,

• 9:10Speaker 02

  those drums come back. It's extremely loud. It's outside. It's everywhere. And they looked to the back of the house.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  And one by one, with each window, faces started to show up.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  The windows are pretty much high off of the ground, and there is these faces of these men looking into the house. With complete fear, they back away from that part of the house. So he goes, I got away from the windows. I didn't go near that part of the house. They just kind of like waited it out to see what would happen. And eventually, the drums start to fade out. And everything gets quiet again.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Así que el día siguiente, vuelven a salir. Hay más huellas de afuera, pero está frío.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  La tercera noche, antes de que viniera a verme, a mi hermano y a mi amigo, dijo que estábamos en la casa, esta vez totalmente asustado. Y de repente, otra vez, la misma cosa, los tambores, extremadamente fuertes.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Y miran hacia las ventanas.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  ¿Van a aparecer las caras esta vez? ¿Quizás solo serán las vibraciones de los tambores esta noche? ¿Quién está haciendo esas huellas? ¿Están ahí también? ¿Deberíamos correr? ¿Qué deberíamos hacer? Así que se miran hacia las ventanas y otra vez aparecen caras en cada una de esas ventanas. Pero esta vez, las caras presionan contra la ventana. Y mientras hacen eso, empiezan a ir a través de la ventana y sus cuerpos empiezan a aparecer. Y son hombres muy, muy grandes.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Y están caminando con una sensación de propósito a través de la casa. Eso es cuando se fue, entró en su auto, condujo a mi casa para buscar ayuda. Dijo, "No creo que pueda volver allí, pero necesito entender que no estoy loco con lo que he visto o experimentado". Tenía esta sensación de miedo cuando él explicaba lo que pasó. No hay dos formas de eso. ¿Estaba pensando que eran marchantes de la noche? Sí, de alguna manera lo estaba. Una de las primeras cosas que sucedió con una experiencia con los marchantes de la noche. Los marchantes de la noche, puedes escuchar los tambores, puedes escuchar el conchero.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Todos estos son sonidos del pasado, llegando al presente. Estos son los dioses de la antigua Hawaií. Pueden viajar a velocidades increíbles. Digamos que los escuchas y están muy lejos en la distancia, en la oscuridad. Y de repente ves torres, ¡fum, bum, bum, bum! Todos aparecen. Y los escuchas acercándose.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Lo que se supone que debes hacer es quitar todos tus zapatos y sentarte,

• 12:41Speaker 02

  preferiblemente con tu cara en el suelo

• 12:47Speaker 02

  y no mover, no respirar si puedes

• 12:53Speaker 02

  y solo esperar que no vengan en tu dirección. Y si lo hacen, tienes que ser muy, muy tranquilo porque dirán en voz alta que esto es vergonzoso, esto es vergüenza lo que haces.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Cuando crecí, ocasionalmente veías estos signos que decían "capu", lo que significa "prohibido" para que la gente esté allí debido al hecho que estos son los caminos de los marchantes de la noche. Los llamamos "través del reino", los llamamos "lugar de la reina". Los marchantes de la noche, basados en historias que han sido recolectadas y compartidas durante muchos, muchos años, pueden ser muy intensos en la forma en que reaccionan con la gente. Y es una interacción entre ellos y nosotros. Y son las formas de la antigua y las formas de la nueva que crean esta interacción. Y a veces podría tener consecuencias muy terribles.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Lo principal es darles el máximo espacio posible. Y luego hay las situaciones con los marchantes de la noche donde van a marchar a través de tu casa y mejor que salgas de su camino cuando vengan. Esa casa era aparentemente, lo que parecía que estaba construida sobre un camino de los marchantes de la noche. Y ahora vamos hacia esto. Ahora vamos hacia esta circunstancia que él solo experimentó. Tan rápido como está hablando, mi mente se acelera también. Estás tratando de mantenerse al día con todos estos hechos que están pasando. Mi amigo Dee está solo conduciendo y ella está muy, muy preocupada.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Estoy sentado junto a ella, ambos nos están dando los ojos al otro cuando él me dice sobre esta última noche. Y estamos muy, muy cerca de esta casa.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Cuando termina su historia o llega a la parte de ellos pasando por las paredes y todo, ya hemos llegado al lugar. Dije, "Dee, quiero que entres en este parque de parking a través de la calle de esta casa". Y cuando ella detiene el auto, Joe se vuelve a todos nosotros. "¿Uno de ustedes, por favor, venga conmigo a la parte trasera de la casa? Esto es por qué estás aquí. Quiero que vaya y mire conmigo para ver si hay algo pasando".

• 15:10Speaker 02

  No estaba ansioso por hacer esto en absoluto. Lo que sea, cualquier tipo de acuerdo de alquiler que tengas, ya sabes, no vale la pena. Pero mi hermano tenía suficiente en él para decir, "Sabes qué, salgamos del auto, vamos a cruzar la calle y vamos a ver esto". Así que mi hermano sale del auto con mi hermano. Se fueron por un par de minutos.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Estoy muy tranquilo, estoy solo sentado con mis pensamientos. Y así es mi amigo Dee, solo este silencio que se comparte entre nosotros. Así que de repente, aquí viene mi hermano, aquí viene mi hermano. Vienen del lado de la casa, corren a través de la calle, super, super rápido. Climbean el embanque y en lugar de abrir las puertas, pasaron a través de la ventana para entrar en el auto. Cogiendo, piernas y tobillos y todo. Y mi hermano solo grita, ¡vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos! Nos alejamos de ese lugar tan rápido como pudimos, pero mientras estábamos volando hacia atrás,

• 16:18Speaker 02

  mi hermano dijo que se fueron a la parte trasera de la casa y está bastante oscurísimo allí, ninguna de las luces está encendida. Así que él y mi hermano están mirando alrededor y mi hermano está mirando hacia el oscuro. Y simplemente se hizo frío de hueso. Ambos miran hacia el bosque.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Vieron lo que pensaban al principio. Fueron personas.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Pudieron ver una línea oscura alrededor de ellos en la oscuridad. Empezaron a brillar, era como esta luz naranja, dorada alrededor de todas estas personas. Pero después de un tiempo, los supieron ser espíritus. Es asustador. Volvimos a mi casa y, ya sabes, en este punto, mi hermano, él se siente como, "Está bien, no estoy loco". Te agradece a nosotros por ir allí con él. Y después de hablar por un tiempo, estoy bastante seguro de que le di un vino o dos, o tres, o cuatro, él se fue a casa, donde sea que fuera, sé que no estaba en esa casa. Después de que Joe se vaya, nos sentamos a dormir.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Pero el día siguiente, esa historia quedó en mi cabeza. No puedo decirte por qué.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Todo lo que sabía es que algo me quería ir allí. Así que fui y hablé con la familia Calabash. Dije, "Ya sabes, tengo que volver allí. Si alguien quiere venir conmigo, ya sabes, puedes. Voy a ir a buscar un trozo de té, que es lo que usas para deshacer espíritus, y voy a ver este lugar por mí mismo". Y así nos reunimos, ahora hay más de nosotros, hay alrededor de diez de nosotros. Y todos decidimos volver a la casa.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Estoy tan asustado, no solo estoy aferrado a los trozos de té. Tengo un trozo de té alrededor de mi cuello para protección. Mientras vamos al lado de la casa, hay este paso corto y es negro. Todos estamos caminando en fila. Y nadie está realmente hablando, está muy tranquilo. Mientras caminamos a la parte trasera de la casa, empieza a hacerse frío.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Estoy solo agitado y estoy mirando alrededor, mirando hacia el oscuro. Es como si quisiera ver pero no veía. Mi "vuelo de lucha" está en sobrecalentado. Cuando llegamos a la parte trasera de la casa, todavía siento esta fuerza que me ha llevado a este momento. Todo el resto está sentado allí, totalmente asustado, aferrado a sus trozos de té. Y nuestros ojos se muestran alrededor en la oscuridad. Estamos mirando hacia el bosque y... Estaban allí. En el bosque mismo, eran personas. Sin embargo, no son personas, ya sabes, son fantasmas.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Y brillan. Están dando este color raro dorado, algo de otro mundo.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Y había un grupo de ellos y estaban inclinándose y cogiendo rocas o plantando algo en el bosque. Otros estaban andando alrededor. Y a la parte de este grupo de espíritus, estos fantasmas, estaba este really alto guerrero hawaiño. Un hombre muy grande, musculoso. Estaba usando un malo, un malo era como una cinta de lomos. Él tenía unos ocho pies de alto.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Sus brazos se cruzaban y parece que está mirando al resto de los espíritus y está mirando en su dirección. Eso fue absolutamente abrumador.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Y estamos mirando este sitio que está en frente de nosotros. Mi amigo que estaba conduciendo el auto esa noche, decidió traer binoculares con ella. Y así pone estos binoculares sobre sus ojos. Y está mirando a estos espíritus y justo en el momento en que hace eso, ese enorme hombre hawaiño de ocho pies de alto, construido como un bodybuilder, simplemente como se aprieta la cabeza en nuestra dirección.

• 20:46Glynn Washington?

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• 21:28Glynn Washington?

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• 21:58Speaker 02

  And he's looking at us. And my friend practically dropped the binoculars at that point. This is a very intimidating looking spirit. I can tell you right now, he was not happy with us being there. He finally saw us and I could feel the tension with everyone around us. They kind of like stiffened up. I pushed myself a few steps back and we're all kind of like taking a couple of steps back. And because I was facing the marsh, the house is behind me and my back goes right up against the house. Boom. And right at that moment, from inside of the house, every single cupboard, every single

• 22:41Speaker 02

  door started to slam. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Over and over and over again. I got so scared, I felt like, you know, my heart not only leaped out of my chest, it went running back to my house. I didn't want to be there and I whipped off that tea leaf lay and I threw it on the ground and I said, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm leaving right now, I'm going, we're leaving. I look and everyone's just booking it out of there, going through the side of the house, squeezing themselves to get out of that walkway, going to their cars and saying they don't want any more part of this at all, that it was done.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  I was on the same page, kind of like the spell was broken. We got into the car and we just left. Everything has changed, absolutely changed. We've done something wrong. They were coming for us. There's very few things that'll stop night marchers. They are a force to be reckoned with. They can do so many different things to you, which means something will happen to you. Physically, spiritually, probably both.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Crippled, or your life is just falling apart. It was a huge, huge concern that we had interfered with something that we shouldn't interfere with at all. And now it was too late. Now, all I could do was hope that in some way that things could be made better. We didn't have many options. We went to where I felt safe. We get back to my house and I left my brother and my friend outside, got out of the car

• 24:47Speaker 02

  and I went straight into the house, got myself a bowl and put water in it. I had tea leaf already with me, so I just went to the corners of my house and I started sprinkling water and I started praying. And I'm doing it from one corner to the house to the next, just in desperation, sprinkling the water, letting it hit the wall and just asking, you know, for whatever just happened to stay away from us. And I did all four corners of my house with that. And by the time I hit the fourth corner, the light started to flash off and on, off and on.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  And I knew that it was them. And that, you know, made me almost drop the bowl to the ground. I was so scared, I practically screamed. And I went to run outside of the house. And at this point, I don't know what else to do. I am spent. I really needed to clear myself. I'm thinking, what can I do? I have used up all of my resources at this point. There was nothing much left in me to do, but to just try and put together bits and pieces from other things that I knew. So I went into the house and, you know, I see the pork, okay, grab the pork.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  And then I saw the tea leaf, okay, I have tea leaf. And I saw the rock outside. One of the most basic types of peace offering was to take a rock and wrap it with tea leaf. So I get the tea leaf, I get the pork, I go outside, my heart is just beating so fast. I take this rock, I put it into the center of the yard. I can't wrap it because the rock is too big. So I just have a couple of tea leaves underneath this rather large rock. I grabbed the pork and I put it on top. I just put everything that I had into apologizing. In a place where I didn't even know existed inside of me, I said, I am so sorry.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  I am so sorry that this happened, hoping that the spirits would acknowledge it. I apologized profusely. I'm trying my best to, you know, explain that I am sorry and this will not ever happen again because I was wrong for what I did. Plain and simple. I was wrong. We all were wrong. And while this is going on, Dee and JJ are looking up into the sky. They saw all these clouds come from different directions in the sky and they all gather over the house and they all are starting to come together.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  And at one point with me talking and saying, I'm sorry, it just stopped. It paused. And then it slowly started to go back in every direction that all of those clouds came from. I needed to make things right. So that was my heartfelt gesture. So I was doing pono to right the wrong that I did. It's from the heart and it's from the spirit to live like that, you know, to live in harmony.

• 28:32Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Obaki, for showing us the path. If I ever cross a king's guard, I promise you, I will bow my head in reverence and get the heck out the way. If you want to hear more of the magical man himself, Obaki, we're going to have a link to all of his channels and handles and all that good stuff on our website, spookpodcast.org. The original score for that piece was by Richard Hay. It was produced by Chris Hamrick.

• 29:16Glynn Washington?

  It's that time, but the story, it is never over, never. Let everyone know about this journey, but warn them first, beliefs, question, minds blown, real people, real stories, spooksters, be afraid. Now, if you dig your storytelling under the light of the sun, get our sister podcast, Snap Judgment, movies of the mind, cinema of sound storytelling with a beat. Spooked brought to you by the team that never talks to dead people. Run, hide your face in terror. From Mark Ristich, from Anna Sussman, our chief spookster is Eliza Smith.

• 29:56Glynn Washington?

  Chris Hamrick, Annie Nguyen, Marissa Dodge, Lauren Newsom, Renzo Goria, Leon Wurimoto, Jacob Winnick, Tiffany Delisa, Anne Ford, Eric Gagnon, Son of Khan. The Spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is from Washington. When you have guests over to your home, you want to be accommodating to other people's ways of doing things. That's all well and good. You are a good person, let them know. Though, in your household, you will adjust the heat as they prefer. They can pick the cereal. You don't even care if they wear shoes inside the house or not, it's all good. But never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever turn out the lights.