► 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

► The Kahuna and Use of Offerings

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 9, 1959 - Clarice B. Taylor's "Tales about Hawaii"

     Daddy (David K.) Bray has found that haole "seekers of the truth" are very anxious to know about the offerings made to Hawaii's old gods and the meanings of the offerings.

     The haole thinks there might be a clue to the secret which "unlocks" the powers of heaven in an offerings.

     The human offering is the best known of all the mohai. Daddy Bray explains that the human being was offered to atone for sins just as it was in the Old Testament of the Bible.

     The most common human offering was the enemy captured in battle. Enemy offerings were made the war god Ku-ka-ili-moku in the belief that the prowess and bravery of the enemy would become the property of the victor.

ABUSED POWERS
     Daddy Bray says the priests of old Hawaii abused their powers just as some moderns abuse their authority. If a priest wanted to curry favor with his chief, he saw to it that the chief's enemy was sacrificed.

     If the chief has a retainer who was a nuisance, the chief would get rid of the man by asking the priests to take him as a sacrifice. It was a splendid way of keeping down freedom of speech.

     Awa, a narcotic drink, was the special offering to the gods. In modern times, brandy, and gin have been substituted because the Hawaiian word for brandy is palani and in Hawaiian, palani is the name of a certain kind of human sacrifice.

     The Hawaiian for gin is gini, pronounced kini. The meaning of kini is "a multitude." so the Hawaiian offers gin and in doing so, asks for a multitude of blessings.

     The list of food and plants used as offerings numbers about 20. Pig was the most important animal offering and taro the most important vegetable.

SPECIAL PIG
     Just any pig would not do. The pig had to be a special breed and color fro the type of offering required and the god to whom it was to be offered.

     Taro represented all life - the running water, the productive earth, fire and air.

     Other offerings included fish from the sea, fish from the fresh water, eggs, chickens, bananas, seaweed, sugar cane, and certain material.

     Each god had its particular list of offerings and the offerings varied according to sin to be forgiven or the purpose of the ceremony.

NEXT: The Gods