A FACELESS WOMAN UPDATE

A FACELESS WOMAN UPDATE

    

The faceless Woman made her first appearance in Hawai`i on May 19, 1959
when Bob Krauss reported in The Honolulu Advertiser that she had
allowedly visited the ladies' restroom at the Waialae Drive-In Theater in Kahala.

   

In one version of the story, a girl left her car and went into the restroom
around midnight to put on fresh lipstick. In the mirror she saw a figure behind her
with long hair and no face. She saw that the figure had no legs, only half a body.
When the girl turned around, there was nobody behind her. The door slammed
shut and locked as the poor girl screamed and fainted.
    In another version reported by Krauss, the woman went to the restroom. As
she entered, she noticed the place was occupied by another woman who was
standing in front of the mirror combing her long, beautiful hair. The first woman
came closer and spoke. The second woman turned slightly. She had no face. The
first woman was so frightened she ended up in the hospital with a breakdown.

   

The suggested cause for the haunting of the faceless woman was the fact
that the Waialae Drive-In Theater was located next to a cemetery. Although
manager Albert Silva strongly denied in 1959 the stories that the restrooms of his
drive-in theater were haunted, he did note that the stories helped business.

"Every
night a couple dozen people asked me if I've seen the ghost," he said. "I haven't

but
I've sure heard enough about it. Business has been booming since
Thursday."    When I first discovered the faceless woman in the
newspaper archives, I
was curious whether anyone had ever actually been an eyewitness to the unusual
entity. The story by Bob Krauss indicated that the sightings were "rumors." No
single firsthand account given of the woman's appearance. This was a perfect
example of what Jan van Brunvand called "urban legend," stories from the friend of
a friend, who had heard the tale from his cousin.

    During the course of a radio interview in 1981 concerning Hawai`i's ghosts,
an anonymous caller asked if I had heard of the faceless woman in the Waialae
Drive-In. I assured her that the ghost was famous in 1959 and that I had indeed
read about this urban legend. The caller then proceeded to share with us her
personal, firsthand account of seeing this faceless creature. The spirit had red hair,
the caller said, and was combing her hair down in front of her face in the mirror.
When she looked in the mirror, the red-haired woman combed her hair back,
revealing that she had no eyes, no nose and no mouth---only a blank, featureless
face.

    All these incidents were included in the first ghost story which I submitted in
1983 to the Hawaii Herald, a newspaper for the Islands' Japanese-American
community, an essay which was reprinted in 1994 in OBAKE: Ghost Stories in
Hawai`i. In that essay I suggested there were strong ties between the faceless
woman of the drive-in and a similar spirt called "mujina" which had been
described by Lafcadio Hearn in Kwaidan, his wonderful collection of obake
stories. Further research revealed that this faceless ghost is also seen in
contemporary Japan---often inside female bathrooms.

    Since the publication of the first essay on mujina in Hawai`i, the faceless
woman has evidently expanded her appearances to other venue throughout the
Islands. For example, rumors now circulate that she has been seen in two different
restaurants in Hilo, and that several shopping malls on the island of O`ahu have been
visited by the faceless phantom.