In the pantheon of ancient Hawaiian worship--or, rather, of the worship
of the group from the twelfth century to the nineteenth--the deity
most feared and respected, especially on the island of Hawaii, was
the goddess Pele. She was the queen of fire and goddess of volcanoes,
and her favorite residence was the vast and ever-seething crater
of Kilauea, beneath whose molten flood, in halls of burning adamant
and grottoes of fire, she consumed the offerings of her worshippers
and devised destruction to those who long neglected her or failed to
respect her prerogatives.
Her assistants and companions, as related by tradition, were her
five brothers and eight sisters, all of them clothed with especial
functions, and all but little less merciless and exacting than
Pele herself. The first in authority under Pele was Moho, king of
steam. The others were charged, respectively, with the duties of
creating explosions, thunders and rains of fire, moving and keeping
the clouds in place, breaking canoes, fighting with spears of flame,
hurling red-hot masses of lava, and doing whatever else the goddess
commanded.
As the family claimed tribute of the entire island of Hawaii, to
receive it they frequently visited the active and extinct craters
of other districts, and earthquakes heralded their departure from
Kilauea. The temples of Pele were numerous, particularly in the
neighborhood of old lava-flows, and their priests were always well
sustained. The crater of Kilauea was especially sacred to the goddess,
and the earth around it could not be safely disturbed. An offering
was first made of a part of everything eaten there, and fruits, pigs,
fowls, fish, and sometimes human beings, were thrown into the crater
to appease the wrath of the goddess and avert a threatened overflow.
The Pele family was neither connected with, nor controlled by,
the supreme gods of Hawaiian worship, nor was it a part either of
the ancient or later theocracy of the group, as brought down by
the priesthood of Hika-paloa, the godhead and trinity of original
creation. It was an indigenous and independent development of the
twelfth century, until which period the family was unknown on Hawaii;
and the strong hold it secured and for centuries maintained in the
native heart was due partly to a popular faith in, and worship of, the
spirits of departed chiefs and ancestors, and partly to the continued
and ever-visible evidences of the power and malignity of the volcanic
deities. And so, indeed, was it with the many other deities of Hawaiian
adoration. While Kane was deemed the creator and undoubted superior of
them all, they were seldom restrained in the exercise of their several
functions, and individual appeals to them through their priests were
necessary to secure their favor or placate their wrath.
With this brief reference to the worship and attributes of the terrible
goddess and her family, the story of their mortal lives will now be
told, and a plain relation given of the strange events which led
to their apotheosis. Every tradition refers to them as deities at
the time of their arrival at Hawaii and occupation of Kilauea, and
all abound in marvellous tales of their exploits, the most wonderful
being connected with the Oahuan warrior Kamapuaa, one of the lovers of
Pele, who was transformed by the bards into a supernatural monster--a
being half-man and half-hog--with powers almost equal to those of
Pele herself. A careful analysis, however, of the various mooolelos
of Pele and her family renders it plain that they came to the group
as simple human beings, and as human beings lived and died, as did
also Kamapuaa, and that superstition subsequently elevated their
mortal deeds to the realms of supernatural achievement.
The Pele family came to Hawaii during the reign of Kamiole, the
usurper, from one of the southern islands--probably Samoa--in about the
year A.D. 1175. It was of chiefly blood, and also of priestly lineage,
and, to escape the penalties of defeat, had, at the close of a long
and disastrous war, fled northward and found a home on Hawaii. The head
of the family had fallen in battle, and Moho, the eldest of the sons,
assumed the direction of what remained of the once powerful household.
The fugitives first landed at Honuapo, in the district of Kau, but,
finding no lands there available, coasted along to the southern
shores of Puna, and finally located in the valleys back of Keauhou,
among the foothills of Mauna Loa, including the crater of Kilauea. A
few miles to the westward an overflow had reached the sea the year
before, and as the volcano was still active, and earthquakes were
of frequent occurrence in the neighborhood, the valleys had been
deserted, and the new-comers who boldly settled there were soon
spoken of as being under the especial protection of the gods, since
they seemed to fear neither earthquakes nor threatened inundations
of fire. Under the circumstances almost everything they did was
credited to supernatural agencies, and it was not long before Pele,
Moho and Kamakaua--the three most influential members of the little
community--were regarded as kahunas of unusual sanctity and power.
The Pele family proper consisted, at that time, of Pele, her two
brothers, Moho and Kamakaua, and a younger sister named Ulolu, who
was after her apotheosis known as Hiiaka-ika-pali-opele. With them,
however, were a number of relatives--principally females, whose
protectors had perished in the struggle preceding their departure
from Samoa--and about thirty attendants. The brothers were large,
stalwart men, who had distinguished themselves in arms in their
native land, and their attendants were warriors of tried courage
and capacity. From these companions and assistants were created the
three additional brothers and seven sisters of Pele mentioned in the
meles of the bards. One of the former--Kanehekili--is said to have
been a hunchback, as was also Kamakaua, but the fighting qualities
of neither seem to have been impaired by the deformity.
Pele was as courageous as she was personally attractive. She had taken
an active part in the wars of her father, and with her own hand had
slain a chief who attempted to abduct her. Her brothers were devoted
to her, and her bright eyes and queenly presence commanded the respect
and homage of all who approached her.
And now, cultivating their lands in the valleys back of Keauhou, and
living contentedly and without fear of molestation, we will leave the
little colony for a time and refer to another important character in
the story we are telling--Kamapuaa, the traditional monster of Oahu,
whose deeds so aggrandize the folk-lore of that island. In some meles
he is depicted as a hog with a human head, and in others as a being
with a human form and head of a hog; but in all he is described as
a monster of prodigious bulk and malicious and predatory propensities.