Pele

My name is Hi'iaka, and I was born from an egg, cradled carefully by my older sister, Pele, as she journeyed across the great sea to make her home in Hawai'i. She is a goddess of immense power, the volcano's fire that both creates and destroys, shaping the very islands we live upon. While she is the simmering heat and the explosive force, I am the life that follows in her wake. I am the dancer who honors the forest, the healer who understands the secrets of the ferns, and the youngest sister, born to bring life to the new land my sister made. Our home is the magnificent, ever-steaming caldera of Kīlauea. One day, a strange stillness fell over Pele. She fell into a deep, enchanted sleep, and her spirit traveled like a phantom wind across the islands to the beautiful shores of Kaua'i. There, she saw a handsome chief named Lohi'au, and she fell deeply in love. When she finally awoke, her heart was a furnace of longing. She turned to me, her most trusted sister, with eyes that burned with an unfamiliar desperation. "Hi'iaka," she pleaded, "you must go to Kaua'i for me. Bring Lohi'au back so he may be with me." I saw her torment and agreed, but I made her give me a solemn promise. "I will go," I said, "but you must swear to protect my sacred groves of ʻōhiʻa lehua trees, and you must keep my dear friend, the dancer Hōpoe, safe from all harm." Pele promised, and with her fiery word as my shield, I was given forty days to complete my quest. This is the story of that journey, a tale of loyalty and love known as the myth of Pele and Hi'iaka.

My journey began with a chant on my lips and a determined step, leaving the familiar warmth of Kīlauea far behind me. The path across the islands was not a simple walk; it was a treacherous and magical ordeal, fraught with peril. The Hawaiian islands were teeming with spirits, ancient guardians known as mo'o, who were not always pleased to let a stranger pass. I encountered a great lizard spirit who guarded a deep river, its massive body blocking my way like a fallen mountain. It hissed, its eyes like polished stones, but I was not just a girl; I was a goddess. With my divine power, a knowledge of potent chants passed down through generations, and my magical pāʻū, or skirt, I battled the beast and sent it fleeing into the depths. My power was not only for fighting, however. I was a healer, a bringer of life. As I traveled, I met people suffering from sickness and despair. Using my profound knowledge of the forest's plants and healing arts, I cured them, mending their bodies and spirits. With each act of kindness, I earned respect and friendship, strengthening my own spirit for the trials ahead. Each island presented a new challenge. I navigated treacherous ocean channels where the waves clawed at my canoe, climbed sheer, rain-slicked cliffs that seemed to touch the clouds, and walked through forests so dense the sunlight could not find the floor. All the while, the forty days Pele had given me were slipping away like sand. With every sunrise, I could feel my sister's impatience growing across the sea, a psychic pressure that felt like the rumbling of the earth before an eruption. But I could not rush the delicate work of healing or the respectful passage through sacred lands. This journey was more than a simple errand; it was a profound test of my character, my courage, and my spirit, proving that my power—the power of life and restoration—was just as formidable as Pele's power of fire and creation.

When I finally set foot on the shores of Kaua'i, my relief quickly turned to profound sorrow. I learned that Lohi'au, devastated by Pele's mysterious disappearance after their brief meeting, had died of a broken heart. His spirit was lost, captured and held by other spirits, wandering aimlessly in the afterlife. My quest had suddenly become immeasurably more difficult. I could not bring a ghost back to my sister. My task was no longer to persuade a chief but to perform the impossible: to wrestle a soul back from the land of the dead. For many long days and nights, I sat with Lohi'au's lifeless body, chanting the most ancient and powerful prayers I knew. I called out to his spirit, using all of my divine energy to guide it back. It was an exhausting, delicate process, like trying to catch moonlight in my hands. But slowly, painstakingly, I succeeded. I coaxed his spirit back into his body and restored the warm breath of life to his lungs. As I helped the weak but living Lohi'au to his feet, I held him in a supportive embrace to keep him from falling. It was at this exact, unfortunate moment that my sister, from her fiery home on Kīlauea, chose to look for me. The forty days had passed, and her patience had eroded completely, turning to suspicion and then to volcanic rage. Seeing me with my arms around Lohi'au, her mind, clouded with jealousy, leaped to a terrible conclusion. She believed I had betrayed her, that I had taken her beloved for myself. In her uncontrollable fury, she forgot her sacred promise to me. She unleashed her power, and rivers of molten lava poured from Kīlauea, consuming my beautiful ʻōhiʻa forests and turning my sacred gardens to fields of black, jagged rock. Worse, in an act of ultimate cruelty, she directed her fire at my dearest friend, Hōpoe, transforming her into a pillar of stone. Across the islands, I felt the destruction in my soul, a sharp, searing pain that told me my world had been burned to ash by my own sister's mistrust.

I returned to the Big Island with Lohi'au, my heart a heavy stone of grief and righteous anger. I confronted Pele at the very edge of her crater, the air thick with sulfur and sorrow. I showed her the devastation she had caused, the blackened earth where my forests once stood, the result of her impulsive, fiery mistrust. Our battle was not of fists but of elemental forces, my life-giving energy pushing back against her all-consuming fire. In the end, there was no true winner, only a fractured and sad understanding between us. Our relationship was forever changed, scarred by betrayal and loss. Lohi'au, caught between two powerful goddesses, was finally free to choose his own path, and he chose to remain with me. My story, and Pele's, became permanently woven into the land of Hawai'i. Her spectacular lava flows are a constant reminder of her passionate, creative, and destructive power—the force that builds our islands. And my sacred ʻōhiʻa lehua trees, which she so cruelly destroyed, are now always the very first form of life to grow back on the new, hardened lava fields. It is said the delicate, crimson flower of the ʻōhiʻa represents the love and resilience at the heart of our story. This myth is shared through generations in the swaying movements of hula and the powerful rhythms of chant, teaching lessons about loyalty, the dangers of jealousy, and the incredible, enduring power of nature. It reminds us all that even after the most profound destruction, life always finds a way to return, beautiful, tenacious, and strong.