King Kalakaua was very much interested in explaining the origin of some of the great Hawaiian myths and legends. He did not make any statement about the parents of the legendary family, but said that the Pele family was driven from Samoa in the eleventh century, finding a home in the southwestern part of the island Hawaii near the volcano Kilauea. There they lived until an eruption surrounded and overwhelmed them in living fire. After a time the native imagination, which always credited ghost-gods, placed this family among the most [[66]]powerful au-makuas and gave them a home in the heart of the crater. From this beginning, he thought, grew the stories of the Pele family.
The trouble with Kalakaua’s version is that it does not take into account the relation of Pele to various parts of Polynesia.
The early inhabitants of the region around Hilo in the southwestern part of the island Hawaii, near Kilauea, brought many names and legends from far-away Polynesian lands to Hawaii. Hilo (formerly called Hiro), meaning to “twist” or “turn,” was derived from Whiro, a great Polynesian traveller and sea-robber. The stories of Maui and Puna came from other lands, so also came some of the myths of Pele.
Fornander, in “The Polynesian Race,” says: “In Hawaiian, Pele is the fire-goddess who dwells in volcanoes. In Samoan, Fee is a personage with nearly similar functions. In Tahitian, Pere is a volcano.”
These varieties of the name Pele, Fornander carries back also to the pre-Malay dialects of the Indian Archipelago, where pelah means “hot,” belem to “burn.” Then he goes back still farther to the Celtic Bel or Belen (the sun god), the Spartan Bela (the sun), and the Babylonian god Bel. It might be worth while for some student of the Atlantic Coast or Europe to find the derivation of the name Pele as applied [[67]]to the explosive volcano of Martinique, and note its apparent connection with the Pacific languages.
In Raratonga is found a legend which approaches the Hawaiian stories more nearly than any other from foreign sources. There the great goddess of fire was named Mahuike, who was known throughout Polynesia as the divine guardian of fire. It was from her that Maui the demi-god was represented by many legends as procuring fire for mankind. Her daughter, also a fire-goddess, was Pere, a name identical with the Hawaiian Pele, the letters l and r being interchangeable. This Pere became angry and blew off the top of the island Fakarava. Earthquakes and explosions terrified the people. Mahuike tried to make Pere quiet down, and finally drove her away. Pere leaped into the sea and fled to Va-ihi (Hawaii).
A somewhat similar story comes in from Samoa. Mahuike, the god of fire in Samoa, drove his daughter away. This daughter passed under the ocean from Samoa to Nuuhiwa. After establishing a volcano there, the spirit of unrest came upon her and she again passed under the sea to the Hawaiian Islands, where she determined to stay forever.
In Samoa one of the fire-gods, according to some authorities, was Fe-e, a name almost the [[68]]same as Pele, yet nearly all the Samoan legends describe Fe-e as a cuttlefish possessing divine power, and at enmity with fire.
Hon. S. Percy Smith, who was for a long time Minister of Native Affairs in New Zealand and now is President of the Polynesian Society for Legendary and Historical Research, writes that the full name for Pele among the New Zealand Maoris is “Para-whenua-mea, which through well-known letter changes is identical with the full Hawaiian name Pele-honua-mea.”
From several continued Pele stories in newspapers in the native language, about 1865, the following sketch of the Pele family is compiled: