Pele- Polynesian GodDeity"Goddess of Volcanoes"

The Journey from Kahiki

Pele came to Hawaiʻi from a distant homeland called Kahiki. She was fleeing her older sister Nā-maka-o-Kahaʻi, the goddess of the sea. In some tellings recorded by Beckwith, Pele had seduced Nā-maka's husband; in others, her volcanic fires threatened the sea goddess's domain. Pele set out across the ocean in a canoe guided by her brother Kamohoaliʻi, the shark god, carrying her flames and her sacred digging stick, the pāʻoa.

She traveled down the Hawaiian island chain from northwest to southeast, attempting to establish a home at each island by digging a fire pit. But at every location, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui, Nā-maka's waves pursued her and flooded the pits, extinguishing the flames. The older, eroded craters of the northwestern islands are the evidence of these failed attempts.

The Fire Pit at Kīlauea

Only when Pele reached the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, the youngest island in the chain, did she find a home beyond her sister's reach. She dug her fire pit at Kīlauea, deep enough and high enough that the ocean could not flood it. Here at Halemaʻumaʻu, the crater within Kīlauea's summit caldera, she established her permanent dwelling. In some traditions, Nā-maka pursued her one final time and the sisters fought a terrible battle at Hāna on Maui, where Pele was torn apart. But her spirit, now fully divine, rose and took possession of Kīlauea, beyond the sea goddess's power forever.

Every eruption of Kīlauea is Pele's action. The lava that flows down the mountain's flanks is her body. The steam that rises from the caldera is her breath. She appears to travelers near the volcano as an old woman with white hair or a beautiful young woman in red, testing their generosity.

Pele and Hiʻiaka

The longest narrative cycle in Hawaiian mythology tells the story of Pele and her youngest sister Hiʻiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele. While sleeping, Pele's spirit traveled in a dream to the island of Kauaʻi, where she encountered a handsome young chief named Lohiʻau and fell in love with him. She danced with him for three days before her spirit had to return to her body at Kīlauea. Desperate to bring Lohiʻau to her in the flesh, Pele asked Hiʻiaka to make the dangerous journey across the islands to fetch him.

Hiʻiaka agreed, on the condition that Pele protect her sacred groves of ʻōhiʻa lehua and her dear friend Hōpoe while she was gone. Pele gave her forty days. Hiʻiaka's journey was perilous. She battled moʻo, giant lizard spirits, and hostile supernatural beings across every island. But the journey took far longer than forty days. Meanwhile, Pele grew suspicious that Hiʻiaka had taken Lohiʻau for herself. In her jealous rage, she sent lava flows that destroyed Hiʻiaka's ʻōhiʻa groves and killed Hōpoe.

When Hiʻiaka returned with Lohiʻau and saw what her sister had done, she embraced Lohiʻau in full view of Pele as an act of defiance. Pele retaliated by killing Lohiʻau with fire. The conflict between the sisters shook the islands until eventually Lohiʻau was restored to life and a fragile peace was made.

Pele and Kamapuaʻa

Pele's most famous romantic entanglement was with Kamapuaʻa, the pig-god, a demigod who could shift between human and boar form, associated with rain, fog, and the wet upland forests. Their courtship was a battle. Kamapuaʻa came to Kīlauea and called out insults and propositions to Pele; she responded with volcanic abuse, mocking his pig nature, his bristles, his mud. Their verbal sparring escalated to physical combat. Pele unleashed rivers of lava while Kamapuaʻa summoned torrential rains and fog to quench her fires.

Neither could destroy the other. Fire and water fought to a standstill. Eventually the two became lovers, a union as passionate and violent as their warfare. They divided the Big Island between them: Pele ruled the dry volcanic leeward districts of Kona and Kaʻū, while Kamapuaʻa claimed the rain-drenched windward coast of Hilo and Hāmākua.

ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua

A handsome young chief named ʻŌhiʻa caught Pele's eye, but he was devoted to his love Lehua and refused the goddess's advances. Pele, enraged at the rejection, transformed ʻŌhiʻa into a gnarled and twisted tree. Lehua was devastated. The other gods, taking pity on her grief, transformed her into the beautiful red flower that grows upon the ʻōhiʻa tree, so that the two lovers might remain together always.

To this day in Hawaiian tradition, picking a lehua blossom from an ʻōhiʻa tree is said to bring rain: Lehua's tears at being separated, even briefly, from her beloved. The ʻōhiʻa lehua is the first plant to colonize fresh lava flows, sending roots into the cracks of still-warm rock and raising scarlet flowers above black stone.

Pele and Poliʻahu

Poliʻahu, the snow goddess of Mauna Kea, ruled the snow-capped summit, beautiful and serene. In some accounts recorded by Westervelt, the two goddesses competed in a hōlua sledding contest on the mountain's slopes. Pele, disguised as a beautiful stranger, challenged Poliʻahu and initially won through trickery. But when Pele revealed her true nature and unleashed volcanic fire, Poliʻahu countered with her mantle of snow and ice, driving the flames back down the mountain.

Pele holds Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, where fire rules. Poliʻahu holds Mauna Kea, where snow falls in winter and the summit remains cold.