Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth From Hawaii

In Short

This foundational Hawaiian epic follows the spirit-goddess Pele and her youngest sister, Hiiaka, as they navigate love, duty, and catastrophic jealousy. When Pele falls for the Kaua'i chief Lohiau during a dream-voyage, she dispatches Hiiaka on a perilous quest across the islands to fetch him. Armed with divine chants and elemental powers, Hiiaka battles hordes of dragons, deceitful sorcerers, and coastal hazards, only to return home and face Pele's devastating wrath. Preserved through generations of oral poetry and collected by Nathaniel Bright Emerson, the saga stands as a monument to Polynesian mythology and island geography.

The Story

The tale opens with the arrival of Pele, mistress of Kilauea, whose restless search for a suitable home brings her to the Hawaiian islands. While resting in her volcanic crater, her spirit travels in a dream to Kaua'i, drawn by the thunderous beat of hula drums. There she encounters Lohiau, the handsome chief of Haena. Transfixed by his beauty, Pele captivates the chief and his court with her divine presence and enchanting chants before her spirit is called back to her body in Kilauea. Obsessed with her mortal lover, Pele demands that one of her sisters travel to Kaua'i to bring Lohiau to her crater domain.

While her older sisters shrink from the dangerous journey, Hiiaka steps forward out of fierce loyalty to her elder sister and chief. Before setting out, Hiiaka demands that Pele confer upon her the mana (divine power) needed to survive the road. Pele grants her command over the elements—sun, wind, rain, and lightning—and promises to protect Hiiaka's beloved groves of lehua trees in Puna while she is away.

Hiiaka embarks on her grueling trek across the island chain, accompanied by her companion Wahine-oma'o. The trail is fraught with mortal and supernatural peril. Hiiaka wages war against four hundred mo'o—monstrous dragon-spirits and deceptive sorcerers who guard mountain passes, unstable bridges, and coastal waters. With powerful prayers and elemental magic, she slays the beasts, exposes false gods, and liberates the local populations from fraudulent tyrants. Upon reaching Kaua'i, however, Hiiaka discovers a tragic truth: Lohiau has died of grief over Pele's departure. Refusing to fail her mission, Hiiaka catches his hovering spirit, performs elaborate restoration rituals, and raises the chief back to life.

As they journey back toward Kilauea, tension builds. Pele's volatile temper gets the better of her; mistaking Hiiaka's delay for betrayal, the volcano goddess flies into a jealous rage and incinerates Hiiaka's sacred lehua forests, killing her cherished friend Hopoe. When Hiiaka reaches the rim of Kilauea with Lohiau, she sees the smoldering ruins of her homeland. Devastated and defiant, Hiiaka embraces Lohiau on the edge of the crater in full view of her sister. Enraged, Pele unleashes torrents of lava and underground fires, consuming Lohiau and turning his body to stone.

In the aftermath, Lohiau's spirit is once again rescued and restored, while Pele's remaining kin work to reconcile the fractured family. Paoa, Lohiau's loyal friend, travels to Kilauea to confront the volcano queen, braving her fiery pit with bold chants of mourning and defiance. Through divine intervention and the enduring resilience of the lovers, Lohiau is ultimately reunited with Hiiaka, establishing a realm of peace separate from Pele's destructive fires.

How It Unfolds

The dream at Haena Pele's spirit leaves her volcanic home and follows the sound of hula drums to Kaua'i, where she entrances Chief Lohiau with her peerless beauty and supernatural chants.

The mandate and the mana Pele tasks Hiiaka with fetching Lohiau, prompting Hiiaka to secure divine authority and elemental powers from her sister to overcome the four hundred monsters infesting the path.

Battling the dragons Hiiaka treks across the islands, defeating ferocious dragon-gods (mo'o) and fraudulent toll-keepers who terrorize travelers at river crossings and mountain passes.

Resurrecting the chief Arriving at Kaua'i only to find Lohiau dead of heartbreak, Hiiaka retrieves his wandering ghost and uses intense prayers and sacred rites to restore him to life.

Pele's breach of faith Overcome by suspicion and impatience, Pele breaks her sacred promise to Hiiaka, burning her sister's beloved lehua groves and killing her close companion.

The fiery retribution Seeing her home destroyed, Hiiaka embraces Lohiau atop Kilauea in defiance, driving Pele to drown the chief in waves of molten lava.

Confrontation and reunion Lohiau's friend Paoa braves the volcano pit to challenge Pele, while Hiiaka restores Lohiau once more, ultimately winning his love and breaking Pele's tyrannical hold.

The People

• Pele

The fiery ruler of Kilauea volcano. She wants absolute obedience and the love of Lohiau, but her explosive jealousy and unpredictable temper stand in her own way. She ends up humbled by her younger sister's superior spiritual strength, remaining powerful yet isolated in her crater.

• Hiiaka

Pele's youngest sister and the heroine of the narrative. She wants to fulfill her duty to her sister while protecting the living world. Hindered by monsters, deadly terrain, and Pele's paranoia, she evolves from a obedient follower into an independent divinity who successfully defies her sister's tyranny.

• Lohiau

The handsome chief of Haena on Kaua'i. He wants romantic devotion, but his mortal vulnerability makes him a pawn between two warring goddesses. After suffering death twice—first by grief and then by lava—he is restored to life and settles into a lasting union with Hiiaka.

• Wahine-oma'o

Hiiaka's cheerful mortal companion. She wants to support Hiiaka on her quest, using her humor and pragmatism to lighten the journey's heavy burdens. She survives the perilous trek across the islands completely unchanged in her loyal good nature.

• Paoa

Lohiau's brave court companion. He wants justice and answers for his friend's fate. Armed only with diplomatic skill and fearless chants, he ventures directly into Pele's fire-pit to confront the goddess face-to-face.

In Its Own Voice

When Pele enters the hula hall on Kaua'i, the onlookers are instantly spellbound by her majestic arrival:

Instinctively the wondering multitude parted and offered a lane for her to pass through and enter the halau, thus granting to Pele a full view of the musicians and performers of the hula...

Before venturing into the dangerous wilds, Hiiaka secures the explicit endorsement of the natural world:

Then she called upon the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, Wind, Rain, Thunder, Lightning--all the heavenly powers--to aid and safeguard Hiiaka and she authorized her to exercise the powers of these heavenly beings.

As Pele's molten rage surrounds the doomed chief atop the caldera, Lohiau chants his final defiance against the rising heat:

Destruction and turmoil in the Pit: The fires of the Woman have done it--Consuming the forests of Ku-lili--Fires that boil from the depths of the Pit, Shaking the stone-plates till they rattle.

What It's Really About

At its core, the epic explores the tension between unbridled elemental power and disciplined moral authority. Pele represents the raw, creative, and destructive forces of nature—volcanoes, wildfires, and violent emotion—that act without regard for promises or human life. Hiiaka embodies the restorative, organizing principles of the natural world: the growth of forests, the healing of wounds, and the sacred obligation of loyalty.

The story asks how mortals and lesser deities survive under the reign of capricious authority. Through Hiiaka's journey, the text argues that true power (mana) is not merely born of terrifying force, but earned through courage, integrity, and honor.

Why Read It Today

Pele and Hiiaka is a masterpiece of Pacific literature, offering readers an immersive window into native Hawaiian cosmology, poetry, and geography. Fans of classic mythology, folklore, and epic quests will find a narrative every bit as dramatic as the Odyssey or the Icelandic sagas, centered on a extraordinarily strong female heroine.

`` +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | READING CONSIDERATIONS | +-------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | Text Structure | Dual English prose narrative embedded with | | | original Hawaiian chants and translations. | +-------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | Pace & Style | Episodic and poetic; dense with place names | | | and local geographic references. | +-------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | Period Footnotes | Extensive scholarly notes reflect early | | | 20th-century ethnographic attitudes. | +-------------------+---------------------------------------------+ ``

The reading experience requires some patience. Emerson's prose carries Victorian formal cadences, and the narrative frequently pauses for long poetic chants that list obscure landmarks, wind names, and family lineages. Yet these very chants give the book its hypnotic power. The landscape of Hawaii comes alive not as static scenery, but as a dynamic theater of living gods, where every cliff, beach, and cloud carries a story.