Dictionary

nightmarcher en · NOUN

Etymology

From night + marcher. Calque of Hawaiian huakaʻi pō.

Meanings

1. In Hawaiian folklore, a ghost of an ancient Hawaiian warrior who marches together with other such ghosts on certain sacred nights from their burial sites or the ocean to the sites of ancient battles or sacred places.
   • The tail of that sinuous line of nightmarchers seemed very horrible, and as I saw them wriggling into a venerable tomb they seemed more horrible still. Then I noticed that the tomb's floor had an aperture down which the throng was sliding, and ... 1997, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Crawling Chaos: Selected Pulp Fiction:
   • "And he hide; da buggah wen hide; if you discovered by a nightmarcher, they take you, boy. So, folks, always watch da road. Go where it's safe." The haole couple next to me nervously chuckled. An understated fright. 2002, Rona Tamiko Halualani, In the Name of Hawaiians: Native Identities and Cultural Politics, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 166:
   • Something from Irene's journals, about what to do if you happen across a nightmarcher on a moon-filled night. 2018, J. Lincoln Fenn, The Nightmarchers, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:
   • […] understood the vision of nightmarchers described by the Chinese man. Sometimes the phantom marchers will be seen stopping at the house of a dying person, to prepare to escort them into the afterlife. In this case, the nightmarchers were […] 1999, Glen Grant, Obake Files: Ghostly Encounters in Supernatural Hawai'I, Mutual Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 122:
   • ... happening in, will not become confused and angry in his efforts to get out. Beds should not be placed directly opposite doorways. One keeps indoors when the Nightmarchers are abroad. On certain nights these progressions of ghosts can […] 1988, John Donald Kingsley, The Antioch Review:

Forms