Pele and Hiʻiaka

Pele was the goddess of fire, of lightning, of the wind, and of the volcano. She lived in the crater of Kīlauea on the island of Hawaiʻi. She had come from the south long ago, with her many brothers and sisters, looking for a home, and she had found it inside the mountain. The crater was her house.

One day Pele lay in her crater and her body slept, but her spirit traveled. Her spirit went out across the ocean and listened. She heard the sound of drumming. She followed the drumming. She came to the island of Kauaʻi, far across the channel. There she saw a young chief named Lohiʻau dancing in front of his hālau. He was beautiful, dark, and graceful. The drum he danced to was the drum of his hālau, and his name was sung as he moved.

Pele's spirit went down to him. She took the form of a beautiful woman. He saw her and stopped dancing. They went together for several days. They were married in the way of the islands. They were happy.

Then Pele said: "I must go back. My body is sleeping. I will send for you."

She returned to her body in the crater of Kīlauea, and woke. Her sleep had been long. The first thing she did was to call her sisters together. She called the youngest and the most loyal of them, Hiʻiaka, who was her favorite. Pele said: "Sister, you must go to Kauaʻi. There is a man there. He is mine. Bring him to me."

Hiʻiaka was hesitant. The journey was long. There were many islands and many dangers between Hawaiʻi and Kauaʻi. Pele said: "I will give you my own power. You will be safe. But take with you a friend. And there are conditions: you must not touch him. You must bring him to me, and only to me. And you must come back within forty days. If you take longer, I will be angry."

Hiʻiaka took a friend named Wahineʻōmaʻo. They set out. The journey was harder than Pele had said. They had to fight monsters along the way. They had to cross black lava fields and shark-filled channels. They walked across the islands and they were tested at every step. Hiʻiaka used the power Pele had given her to win the fights, but each fight took time. The forty days were running short.

When at last she came to Kauaʻi and to Lohiʻau's house, she found him dead. He had been dead for a while. He had died of grief, missing Pele, who had not come back for him. His body was in a cave in the cliff.

Hiʻiaka was upset, but she did not give up. She climbed the cliff to the cave. She found Lohiʻau's spirit hovering nearby. She caught it, gently, the way you catch a bird without crushing it. She put the spirit back into the body. She chanted the chants of life over him. After a long while, his eyes opened.

She helped him stand. They came down the cliff. She brought him back across the islands. Now there were three of them traveling, Hiʻiaka, her friend, and Lohiʻau. Lohiʻau was tired and weak. Hiʻiaka took care of him. She did not touch him. She kept her promise.

But the journey back took longer than the journey out. The forty days were used up. Pele, in the crater, waited and grew angry. She believed Hiʻiaka had betrayed her. She believed Hiʻiaka had taken Lohiʻau for herself. She did not see what was actually happening. She lashed out.

She sent fire across the islands. She set fire to the lehua forest that Hiʻiaka loved. The lehua was Hiʻiaka's plant. Hiʻiaka, walking back with Lohiʻau, looked up and saw the smoke. She knew what it meant.

When she came at last to the rim of the crater, she saw what Pele had done. Lehua trees were burning. A friend Hiʻiaka had loved, named Hopoe, who lived in the forest, had been killed by the lava.

Hiʻiaka's heart broke. She had kept her promise the whole way. She had brought Lohiʻau back alive, untouched, on her own back at the end. And her sister had punished her for nothing.

She turned to Lohiʻau there at the edge of the crater. He was standing. He was alive. He was looking at Hiʻiaka with a different expression than he had on the journey. Now, knowing what Pele had done, Hiʻiaka kissed him.

Pele saw it from the crater. She believed she had been right all along. She came up out of the lava and she swept Lohiʻau into the fire. He died there at the edge of the crater. He died for the second time.

Hiʻiaka left her sister's house. She went down the slope of the volcano. She would not come back for a long time. But she went again, finally, alone, down to where Lohiʻau's spirit was, and brought it up the way she had done on Kauaʻi, and brought him back the second time. She and Lohiʻau lived together after that, on Kauaʻi, in his house. Pele, in time, accepted that Lohiʻau was no longer hers, and that Hiʻiaka was the one who had earned him.

The lehua forest grew back. The lava cooled and turned to new ground. The two sisters made up, in time, but the marks of the fire are on the slopes of Kīlauea still. The hula chants of the sisters are still danced. They are very old chants. They sing of love, and of jealousy, and of the trouble that comes when you do not believe what you are being told.