CHARACTERS.
- Pele, goddess of the volcanoes.
- Moho,
- brothers of Pele.
- Kamakaua and
- Kanehekili,
- Kalana, a chief from the southern islands.
- Kamaunui, wife of Kalana.
- Hina, daughter of Kalana and Kamaunui.
- Olopana, chief of Oahu and husband of Hina.
- Kahikiula, brother of Olopana.
- Kamapuaa, the monster son of Hina.
| Moho, |  | brothers of Pele. |
| Kamakaua and | ||
| Kanehekili, |
THE APOTHEOSIS OF PELE.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE GODDESS WITH KAMAPUAA.
I.
In the pantheon of ancient Hawaiian worship—or, rather, of the worship of the group from the twelfth century to the nineteenth—the deity most feared and respected, especially on the island of Hawaii, was the goddess Pele. She was the queen of fire and goddess of volcanoes, and her favorite residence was the vast and ever-seething crater of Kilauea, beneath whose molten flood, in halls of burning adamant and grottoes of fire, she consumed the offerings of her worshippers and devised destruction to those who long neglected her or failed to respect her prerogatives.
Her assistants and companions, as related by tradition, were her five brothers and eight sisters, all of them clothed with especial functions, and all but little less merciless and exacting than Pele herself. The first in authority under Pele was Moho, king of steam. The others were charged, respectively, with the duties of creating explosions, thunders and rains of fire, moving and keeping the clouds in place, breaking canoes, fighting with spears of flame, hurling red-hot masses of lava, and doing whatever else the goddess commanded.