Pele

Pele Oceania
A Polynesian fire goddess associated with the flow of lava. Renowned for her beauty—her back was straight as a cliff and her breasts rounded like the moon—Pele wandered widely before she settled on Hawaii. One legend says she was searching for her husband, Wahieloa, who had been enticed away by a rival. With her came the sea, which poured from her head over previously dry land: a tearful inundation. When roused to anger, however, she would turn people and animals to stone. ‘Swift retribution is hers.’

Having assumed the form of a beautiful maiden, Pele won the heart of a young chief named Lohiau, ‘handsome of body’. She left him on the third night of their marriage and told him to await her messenger to bring him to the house she was making ready for him. Because it took her sisters and attendants a long time to reach the village where Lohiau lived, the young chief died of grief. Undaunted by this set-back, they recalled his...

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