Pele: Volcano Goddess of Hawaii

"The Hawaiians had several images of the afterlife... The highest of these after
worlds was in a flaming crater at the top of the mountain of the volcano-goddess
Pele, where there was no pain, only sheer delight."
Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology
Pele is just one of a number of Volcano Goddesses. In Hawaii she is Goddess of M
ount Kilauea, a still-active volcano. During the 1950s, when christian missionar
ies were busy converting the people to christianity, prayers to Pele preceded th
e stopping of lava at the edge of villages. The people still knew which chants a
nd gifts would please Pele.
"Of all the world's Goddesses, Pele is one of the few still living in the belief
of her people, not as a metaphor, but as a metaphysical reality, to whom offeri
ngs are still made when volcanic eruptions threaten Hawaiian towns."1 In Hawaii
people have reported seeing an old woman who asks for a cigarette, lights it wit
h a snap of her fingers and disappears. Others have seen a red-robed woman danci
ng on the rims of the fiery mountains.
There are a number of legends of Pele. In one her people say, when Pele was youn
g the centre of the earth glowed with her loveliness, and she was content for a
million years to live in Her house in the centre. Until one day, when Pele walke
d to the edge and met Ocean. "Pele, may I come in," he said. Pele would not let
him in but gradually, after several meetings, Pele and Ocean began to know each
other, and a fiery love began to glow in Her heart.
Finally, as Ocean pleaded one more time for Pele to let him into her house of fl
ames, She curled Her fingers into the edges of a crack and pulled it wide for hi
s to enter. Ocean fell into Her arms. This was the beginning of the marriage of
Pele and Ocean. Some say that lava is the offspring of Pele and Ocean. "It is th
e fire of Pele that makes it red hot, and the water of Ocean that makes it flow
like a mighty river."2
Another legend tells that Pele, the daughter of the earth-Goddess Haumea, spent
her childhood watching and making fires, and this did not please the sea Goddess
Namaka. After causing trouble in Her mother's homeland after toying with the Un
derworld fires, Pele's mother told her to find a home of her own. Namaka trailed
Pele on her search, furious at the mayhem caused by Pele in their homeland. "Oc
ean and Fire met in a terrific brawl, and Pele got the worst of it, rising like
a steamy spirit from the fray. No longer embodied, She disappeared into the Hawa
iian volcanoes..."3
Pele was honoured in Hawaii as the essence of earthly fire and another story tel
ls of her fiery sexuality. Pele fell in love with a young man called Lohiau. She
embodied herself in human flesh and seduced him, spending three days making lov
e before she decided to return to her volcanos. Pele still desired Lohiau and ga
ve her sister Hiiaka the gift of magick and sent her to fetch him. Through many
trials and tribulations, Hiiaka fulfilled Her task, and returned to Pele with He
r lover.
Pele however was a jealous spirit, and while her sister was journeying, had conv
inced herself of her infidelity. She has scourched Hiiaka's beautiful gardens an
d killed the poet Hopoe in Her fury. Hiiaka made love to Lohiau then and there o
n the rim of the crater. Pele burned him to death but could not harm her immorta
l sister. Hiiaka fled to the Underworld to free Lohiau's soul, deep into the pla
ce where the rivers of chaos were held back by a gate. Hiiaka knew that the floo
ding of the world would extinguish Pele and her fury but her conscience kept her
from doing such a deed.
Hiiaka returned to the surface and demanded her lover from Pele. By this time Lo
hiau's friend Paoa had arrived in time to satisfy the Goddess's heat! Later Pele
took another lover, the hog-God Kamapau'a, God of Agriculture, whose idea of co
urting was to douse her flames with rain. To this day their affair plays itself
out on the islands called Hawaii.
Notes:
1. Patricia Monaghan, The Book of Goddesses and Heroines, Llewellyn Publications
, USA,1993, page 276.
2. Carolyn McVickar Edwards, The Storyteller's Goddess, Harper Collins, 1991, pa
ge 18.
3. Patricia Monaghan, op.cit., page 277