AI-LAAU, THE FOREST EATER
When Pele came to the island Hawaii, seeking a permanent home, she found another god of fire already in possession of the territory. Ai-laau was known and feared by all the people. Ai means the “one who eats or devours.” Laau means “tree” or a “forest.” Ai-laau was, therefore, the fire-god devouring forests. Time and again he laid the districts of South Hawaii desolate by the lava he poured out from his fire-pits.
He was the god of the insatiable appetite, the continual eater of trees, whose path through forests was covered with black smoke fragrant with burning wood, and sometimes burdened with the smell of human flesh charred into cinders in the lava flow.
Ai-laau seemed to be destructive and was so named by the people, but his fires were a part of the forces of creation. He built up the [[2]]islands for future life. The process of creation demanded volcanic activity. The flowing lava made land. The lava disintegrating made earth deposits and soil. Upon this land storms fell and through it multitudes of streams found their way to the sea. Flowing rivers came from the cloud-capped mountains. Fruitful fields and savage homes made this miniature world-building complete.
FIRE FOUNTAINS IN HALEMAUMAU, KILAUEA
Ai-laau still poured out his fire. It spread over the fertile fields, and the natives feared him as the destroyer giving no thought to the final good.
He lived, the legends say, for a long time in a very ancient part of Kilauea, on the large island of Hawaii, now separated by a narrow ledge from the great crater and called Kilauea-iki (Little Kilauea). This seems to be the first and greatest of a number of craters extending in a line from the great lake of fire in Kilauea to the seacoast many miles away. They are called “The Pit Craters” because they are not hills of lava, but a series of sunken pits going deep down into the earth, some of them still having blowholes of sputtering steam and smoke.
After a time, Ai-laau left these pit craters and went into the great crater and was said to be living there when Pele came to the seashore far below.
In one of the Pele stories is the following [[3]]literal translation of the account of her taking Kilauea: