es of
Koreamoku, continued to practise the healing art after the death of
their master, and they too were deified after death, particularly
because they were often successful in driving away the evil spirits
which afflicted the people and threatened them with death. To these
deified men the priests addressed their prayers when they administered
medicine to the sick.[63]

[63] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 335 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 71.

Of all the deities of Hawaii the most dreaded was Pele, the goddess of
the volcanic fire, whose home was in the great and ever active volcano
of Kilauea. There she dwelt with the other members of her family,
brothers and sisters. They were all said to have come to Hawaii from a
foreign country called Tahiti after the great deluge had subsided. The
cones which rise like islands from the vast sea of boiling lava,
vomiting columns of smoke or pyramids of flame, were the houses where
these volcanic deities lived and amused themselves by playing at
draughts: the crackling of the flames and the roaring of the furnaces
were the music of their dance; and the red flaming surge was the surf
wherein they sported, swimming on the rolling fiery waves.[64] The
filaments of volcanic glass, of a dark olive colour and as fine as human
hair, some straight, some crimped or frizzled, which are to be seen
abundantly on the sides of the crater, and on the plain for miles round,
are called by the natives "Pele's hair"; in some places they lie so
thick as to resemble cobwebs covering the surface of the ground.[65]
Near the crater grow bushes bearing clusters of red and yellow berries
resembling large currants; of these the natives formerly would never eat
till they had thrown some of the clusters into the thickest of the smoke
and vapour as an offering to the goddess of the volcano.[66] Vast
numbers of hogs, some alive, others cooked, used to be cast into the
craters when they were in action or when they threatened an eruption;
and when they boiled over, the animals were flung into the rolling
torrent of lava to appease the gods and arrest the progress of the fiery
stream. For the whole island had to pay tribute to the gods of the
volcano and to furnish provisions for the support of their ministers;
and whenever the chiefs or people failed to send the proper offerings or
incurred the displeasure of the dreadful beings by insulting them or
their ministers, or by breaking the taboos which had to