Polynesian PantheonSacred Site
Kilauea Volcano
The home of Pele, goddess of volcanoes, located on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Halemaumau crater within Kilauea is considered Pele's residence, where she creates new land through volcanic eruptions. One of the most active volcanoes on Earth.
About Kilauea Volcano
Pele's pit
Halema'uma'u in Kilauea is Pele's home in Hawaiian tradition: a goddess of lava who arrived from Kahiki, fought sisters (including Poliahu of the snow), and still makes land. Chants and later written versions (Fornander, Kamakau, Emerson) are the sources. There is no pre-contact written epic. Offerings at the crater are attested historically; treat them as living practice, not as a reconstructed Bronze Age rite. The volcano is the body of the story.
On the map
Kilauea Volcano among other places of the Polynesian Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Hawaiian tradition (Pele chants; Fornander / Emerson collections)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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