be observed in
the vicinity of the craters, the angry deities would spout lava from the
mountain or march by subterranean passages to the abode of the culprits
and overwhelm them under a flood of molten matter. And if the fishermen
did not offer them enough fish, they would rush down, kill the fish with
fire, and, filling up the shoals, destroy the fishing-grounds
entirely.[67] People who passed by the volcano of Kilauea often
presented locks of hair to Pele by throwing them into the crater with an
appropriate address to the deity.[68] On one occasion, when a river of
lava threatened destruction to the people of the neighbourhood, and the
sacrifice of many hogs, cast alive into the stream, had not availed to
stay its devastating course, King Kamehameha cut off some of his own
sacred locks and threw them into the torrent, with the result that in a
day or two the lava ceased to flow.[69] In the pleasant and verdant
valley of Kaua there used to be a temple of the goddess, where the
inhabitants of Hamakua, a district of Hawaii, formerly celebrated an
annual festival designed to propitiate the dread divinity and to secure
their country from earthquakes and floods of lava. On such occasions
large offerings of hogs, dogs, and fruit were made, and the priests
performed certain rites.[70] Worshippers of Pele also threw some of the
bones of their dead into the volcano, in the belief that the spirits of
the deceased would then be admitted to the society of the volcanic
deities, and that their influence would preserve the survivors from the
ravages of volcanic fire.[71] Nevertheless the apprehensions uniformly
entertained by the natives of the fearful consequences of Pele's anger
prevented them from paying very frequent visits to the vicinity of the
volcano; and when on their inland journeys they had occasion to approach
the mountain, they were scrupulously attentive to every injunction of
her priests, and regarded with a degree of superstitious veneration and
awe the appalling spectacle which the crater, with its sea of molten and
flaming lava, presented to their eyes.[72] They even requested strangers
not to dig or scratch the sand in its neighbourhood for fear of
displeasing the goddess and provoking her to manifest her displeasure by
an eruption.[73]

[64] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 237, 246-249; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 42 _sq._

[65] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 363 _sq._; Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._
iv. 129.