Pele

Pele — Pelehonuamea — is the Hawaiian akua (deity) of volcanoes, fire and the forces that at once destroy and create land. In tradition she journeyed down the island chain and made her home in Halemaʻumaʻu crater at the summit of Kīlauea, one of the most active volcanoes on Earth; its eruptions, its lava and the new ground it lays down are understood as Pele herself at work. Many moʻolelo (stories) tell of her passions, her rivalries — above all with her sister Nāmakaokahaʻi, goddess of the sea — and her appearances among people as an old woman or a beautiful stranger.

Pele is not a figure of the past but a living presence in Native Hawaiian tradition. Her stories are carried in moʻolelo and in oli (chant), and her domain is met with real protocol and respect; for many, proper conduct and offering at the volcano are a continuing relationship, not folklore. (The popular tourist notion of a «curse» on those who carry home lava rocks, by contrast, is a modern invention, not a traditional teaching.)

As living Indigenous heritage, the fuller knowledge of Pele — the specific chants, genealogies and practices — belongs to the Hawaiian cultural practitioners who carry it. What can be set down here is only its outline; the substance rightly stays with its people.