► Pele, The Fashionable

 The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Friday, December 4, 1959 - Clarice B. Taylor's "Tales about Hawaii"

     Today, Pele is called "the woman in red"  and she is pictured in an flaming red holoku.

     It is not always so. Pele keeps up with fashion.

     In very ancient days, she was thought of as a beautiful young woman clothed in a cloud of steam or just a fluffy white cloud.

     In the books of Pele legends published during the last century, Pele was often pictured as a young woman in a split ti-leaf skirt. At the same time, the text of the legends said Pele was dressed in Kapa (kapa is the old beaten bark skirt).

DONS HOLOKU 
     After the missionaries dressed the Hawaiians in holokus, Pele began wearing a red silk holoku and smoked cigarettes. During that early period, Pele often asked for cigarettes.

     Another change cam over Pele at the same time. In old Hawaii, Pele was given awa as a drink offering. Awa was the drink of the gods and therefore correct for her.

     During the twentieth century, Hawaiians gave up making awa because the church taught that awa was evil. so, folks began throwing bottles of gin into the pit. Nowadays they throw any kind of liquor as an offering.

     Pele keeps up with the times. Today she rides in automobiles and on street cars.

     She likes tailored cigarettes and no longer rolls her own or smokes a small ivory pipe.

     The modern Pele has problems the old Pele never knew. Each time she makes an appearance to let people know that she plans letting loose her lava flow, moderns makes new legends.

     For instance, moderns have the impression that Pele's appearance to a particular person means death to that person. Such folklore has grown out of old legends which tell of the destruction of those who refuse food or  tobacco.

     Pele often find modern visitors are a curse.  She particularly dislikes those who clutter her domain with filthy wrapping papers and old sacks.

BELCH FUMES
     Her only defense is to kick up her heels and spray such people with drops of hot lava or belch strong fumes.

     She has a more successful way of dealing with those who take rocks and cooled lava from her without permission of saying "thank you." During the Puna flow, she was pestered with visitors who tore chunks of cooled lava from her and took the pahoehoe home.

     Pele's revenge is to strike the individual, or someone close, with a crippling illness.

     If you would to escape injury, speak to Pele under your breath and tell her that you want some of her hair or her cooled lava. Be sure to thank her for it.

NEXT: Pele's boy friends

► Pele on the Island of Oahu and Maui

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Tuesday, December 1, 1959 - Clarice B. Taylor's "Tales about Hawaii"

     Just before Pele left the Island of Kauai, she made one more attempt to build a home above Waimea Canyon. She dug with Pa-oa on the brink of the canyon and left a red mound which is today known as Puu-ka-Pele.

     It may be seen on the edge of the canyon today and is a favorite lookout for tourists.

     Pele then came to the Island of Oahu. She knew from her experience at Puu-ka-Pele that Paloa (spelled differently from previous stories) her digging stick, would not dig a deep place on a mountain side., yet she went ahead a dug a hole on the plains back of Moanalua. The crater filled with salt water and was named Ke-alia-paa-kai and is know today as Salt Lake.

     Since she could not dig deep into a mountain side and establish firm foundations, Pele confined her diggings to the sea shore, notably at Leahi, now Diamond Head.

DISGUSTED
     Disgusted with Oahu, Pele and her family migrated across the channel to the Island of Maui. There they lived contently for many years in the great crater Haleakala. 

     From her high cloudland in Nuu-mea-lani (raised dias of heaven), the sea-queen Nakamaka (varied spelling from previous stories) watched Pele's craters filling with water and laughed with glee. The long residence in Haleakala crater made her determined to fight it out with Pele. She lured Pele to the high plateau land above the hedland of Kauiki Nui, off Hana.

     The two sisters fought a battle hand to hand. Namaka succeeded in tearing the lava bones of Pele and scattering them around on the land that is called Na-iwi-o-Pele (The bones of Pele). Visitors may see some of those bones to this day.

     Namaka went back to Nuu-me-lani delighted to think that Pele was dead and would never again annoy her.

     Namaka was misatken. She had destroyed the mortal body of Pele but not her immortal spirit.

TO KILAUEA
     Pele took on another mortal body and led her family across the ocean to the coast of Puna, Hawaii. They landed at a small fishing village and Pele led the way up the mountainside until she came to the pit called Kilauea.

     There was no one at home, so she dug into the pit and made a home for herself and family.

     The reason no one was at home is that the firegod Ailaau had seen pele coming and had run away. Perhaps he hid in some of the caves on Mauna Loa. He has never been seen since.

     Pele dug and dug at Kilauea with her magic stick. She found Hale-mau-mau and Kilauea to her liking. Far off in Nuu-mea-lani Namaka knew Pele was still alive. She saw the spirit of her sister standing over Kilauea.

NEXT: Gifts for Pele

► Paradise Gained and Lost - 3: Paradise

Honolulu Star Bulletin. Thursday, January 10, 1957 - Tales about Hawaii, Clarice B. Taylor   

     The brothers Kiinoho (stay at home) and Kiihele (the traveler) walked about Paliuli at dawn looking for the gods they knew resided in  that earthly paradise in Puna on the Island of Hawaii.

     They saw no gods in the form of human beings and Kiinoho, who was loved by his aumakua (guardian god) soon realized that the gods were about them.

Each beautiful tree was a god or goddess; the birds which called to each other from the tree tops; 

Maile vine

   

the vines - sweet smelling maile - the flowers which adorned the lehua and ohia trees - they were all gods.

WONDERMENT
     Their wonderment grew when they came to a beautiful lake, serenely blue in color and rippled only by the fish which jumped from the water in play.

     That, they knew must be the everlasting fish supply of which they had heard fabled stories.

     They walked about the lake and around the splendid breadfruit tree which bore not only breadfruit in all stages of growth but foods of other kinds ready to be eaten.


     Their wonderment appeased, the brothers selected a nice flat field beside the lake and decided to make their home near the fish supply and the breadfruit tree.

     Kiihele roamed about until he had located banana shoots, sugar cane, awa, sweet potatoes, yams and ferns.

Awa

     Then began a roundup of animals to raise - chickens, hogs and dogs.


     Within a few months the brothers had a luxuriant farm thriving by the lake.


     The sugar cane had grown until it fell over and curved upward. The bananas bore until the fruit fell ripe to the ground.


     The ohia fruit was as large as a breadfruit before being plucked.


     The hogs grew until their tusks were long; the chickens until their spurs were long and sharp and the dogs until their backs were broadened out.


     The two brothers could not possibly consume all the food they raised in Paliuli.


NEXT: Kepakailiula

► Paradise Gained and Lost - 1: Paliuli

Honolulu Star Bulletin. Tuesday, January 8, 1957 - Tales about Hawaii, Clarice B. Taylor  

     The birth of a child as an egg was a rather common thing in the days when the gods lived on earth and were begetting human beings to inhabit the Hawaiian Islands.

     The reason was that the first human beings were part divine and part human. They had supernatural qualities as granted them by their godly parents.

     Kepakailiula was born an egg in a family at the point Keaau in Puna.

     He was the first born of Hiwahiwa (the beloved one), called Hina, and her husband Ku.

     His name Ke-paka-ili-ula means "the person with a red skin."

     The family of Ku and Hina included grandparents and two brothers of Hina. The brothers were Kiinoho (the stay at home) and Kiihele (the traveler).

MANY DREAMS
     All Kiinoho did was to stay around the house and dream.

     His dreams were important because the family aumakua (gods) visited Kiinoho in his dreams and foretold events to come or guided the family actions.

     Kiihele, on the other hand, loved to be on the go. He could run around the Island of Hawaii in one day, starting from Puna before sunset of the same day.

     In the highlands above the family home at Keaau was located Paliuli, the paradise of the gods.

     No human being had ever seen Paliuli. The gods had built it for their private home, when they first came to live on earth.

HID BY MISTS
     They had located it in a grove of trees and hidden it with mists. The Moo (supernatural lizards) guarded the path to Paliuli with earthquakes.

     The gods who lived at Paliuli were fed and guarded by other gods in the form of birds.

     Mortals never saw these things but heard about the great lake of fish and the fine fruits which grew abundantly in Paliuli.

     The fame of Paliuli had spread throughout the Islands and it had been the ambition of many high-born chiefs from Kauai, Oahu and Maui to find Paliuli and woo the fabulous beauty who lived there.

     All had been turned back by the supernatural creatures who guarded Paliuli.

NEXT:  *Unavailable*

He Mana'o...
The written form of Hawaiian, of course not an indigenous development but a foreigner concept, was not written at that time with kahako and okina. Since the renaissance of Hawaiian language learning, Hawaiian scholars must have initiated the use of kahako and okina the help new learners and readers to accent Hawaiian words as close to how they should be pronounced...you must have noticed there are none in this writing. Another passing thought is that the computer wasn't around in 1957... owning a typewriter was a big deal for many of us... just thinking.