Pele travels to Hawai’i

“…The coming of Pele and her companions…for the Hawaiian people happened before the time of Paumakua and that of La’a, or La’amaikahiki. That was also the time when [others] came from Kahiki as humans do – that is, by canoe. These became ancestors for the people of Oahu…when Kamapua’a lived with Pele, he became an ancestor for those of Hawaii…Their child…became the ancestor of chiefs and people…[Pele] became an ‘aumakua [ancestral guardian] and a kumupa’a [divine source-light] for the descendants born from her body. She was consecrated and made a god by persons not related by blood descent; that is how Pele became an akua [god] for this race…”
(S. Kamakau, Ka Po’e Kahiko [The People of Old], pp. 68-69)

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“And from the southwest in that age came the goddess of fire
Pele following the source of fire to make her home there
some said she was born in Tahiti some said she was born
in Kaui helani a land floating like a cloud
some say she was driven away by her stern sister
the sea goddess Namaka…
…they say that when Pele left
she had with her in the canoe her brothers the gods
and under her arm her small sister Hi’iaka
they sailed to the ancient syllables the line of faded atolls
in the northwest and then journeyed back to the mountain
which the inhabitants by then had named Kauai…
others say she traveled the length of the islands digging
for the well of fire and was settled at Kilauea…”

(W.S. Merwin, The Folding Cliffs, p. 53)

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