The original inhabitants of islands in the South Pacific considered their temperamental volcanoes to be the handiwork of gods and goddesses. According to Hawaiian legend, Pelé, the goddess of fire, arrived in Hawaii armed with a digging stick, after fleeing from an angry sister, Namakaokahai, who lived somewhere to the south. Pelé was seeking fire, and dug "pits" (craters) in succession on the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and Maui. At Maui, Namakaokahai caught up with Pelé, killed her, and scattered her bones in the sea, where they now appear as a fan of small islands offshore. Pelé returned, however, as an eruptive cloud over the still-active volcanoes on the big island of Hawaii; there, she dug a pit, the volcanic crater known as Kilauea, and finally found her fire. Pelé decided to live in Kilauea, and has done so ever since. Unfortunately, she angers easily, and vents her rage by spitting out floods of hot lava to engulf those who have displeased her. To placate Pelé, islanders throw sacrifices into the crater. More than once, an advancing flow of lava has stopped just short of a vulnerable village soon after a sacrifice.

Like many legends of the land, the story of Pelé seeks to explain unusual and dramatic landforms in an anthropomorphic way, a way that makes sense in the context of a culture. Significantly, the sequence of events in Pelé’s journey accurately matches the sequence in which the islands of Hawaii formed. And Pelé’s name has now become part of geologic terminology. We use the terms "Pelé’s tears" for teardrop-shaped pieces of obsidian made from drops of lava in a lava fountain, and "Pelé’s hair" for hair-like strands of volcanic glass.

For more information about Kilauea and other Hawaiian volcanoes, visit the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and their Current Updates page.

Other Feature Articles in this chapter:  1  :  2

top of page