288 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 564 



PELE'S EERlStERY. 



BY CHARLES FESSENDEN HICHOLS, M. D., BOSTON, MASS. 



One Hawaiian morning, word was excitedly brought: 

 '•The cloud is off the pali and here are waiting Noo Loeloe 

 (the Tired Lizard), Po Poki (Poor Pussy) and Wai Atlan- 

 tika (the Atlantic Ocean), three merry natives all ready to 

 climb the mountain, and why should not haoli (the 

 outsider) 'join them ? For it is but once in eleven years 

 that Pele's cloud is of£ the pali. 



Now who is Pele ? And what is a pali ? Any pali may 

 become American soil and we ought to recognize it. The 

 word simply means a high rock, or precipice, usually 

 overhanging a mountain torrent; but Pele's pali, just 

 here above the valley Waiijio, enwrapped forever in the 

 cloud which its great height attracts, is, with a considerable 

 area of table-land, her own reserve. Superstition com- 

 pletely debars the natives from visiting this region; it is 

 tabu ground, 



"Death sure and swift awaits there," 



and nobody ever goes u^) to grope in the tangle of this 

 beautiful cloud-garden of the very melodramatic goddess 

 of Hawaii rei. To-day, however, so say these three natives, 

 Pele withdraws her tabu. In compliment to the white 

 haoli traveller, the secret-sacred, gray-fluffy cap, always 

 hiding her white face* is, in part, removed. 



Pele is the true ruler of Hawaii, not a queen or a prin- 

 cess to be bribed or pensioned dollarwise, goddess of in- 

 fernal coquetry, of form so unstable that no idol has been 

 fashioned for her worship, although she is held in such 

 reverence as is given to no other, placable only when mas- 

 querading in some chaotic element, whose last footstep 

 tossed molten lava, and who hides her rare garden where 

 it finds its sunshine above the clouds. 



Polypodium tameriscum, Hawaii. 



Realizing then, Lizard, Pussy and Wai Atlantika ! 

 that your tales are ever highly colored and that eleven 

 days would, most likely, generously span the time where- 

 in your mountain has lately remained under water (even 

 a fish-story must come to the surface to breathe before its 

 eleventh year), realizing all this, it is pleasant to know 

 that the wind has changed, her trade-wind no doubt; such 

 good fortune is not to be slighted, and so we will together 

 ride to the pali. 



On unshod horses, lassoed from a neighboring rice- 

 patch, we ride, with slight ascent, through long weeds 

 and grass. Looking backward, the curious illusion pre- 

 vails, often observed on an island, that the water below 



*Pele is represented fair and flaxen- haired. Tradition of northern voyag- 

 ers visiting these islands deified them, taking note of their light complexion. 

 Captain Cook and his sailors were worshipped, at first, as gods. 



appears to rise and confront us, as if we were lower than 

 the sea whose lustrous furrows seem no deeper than 

 warped surface of polished mahogany. 



Birds are seldom seen on these islands, yet we can hear 

 much twittering, as if made by little hidden birds. These 

 birds are never captured "and if we were to see one," says 

 \Vai Atlantika, "we should be drowned." A few humming- 

 birds are out to-day, and sand-mice, underground, make 

 a noise between singing and chirping. 



"Kauka" (Doctor), says Lizard, "it is time to be careful." 

 Henceforth, at stated intervals, we dismount to place 

 crisscross bunches (leis) of flowers and leaves, to propiti- 

 ate the mountain deities (hoo-kupu). 



Very safe it is to push aside the long weeds, seeking 

 yams and ferns, for there are no snakes nor any other 



Trichomenes pervulum, Hawaii. 



venomous reptilian life on beautiful Hawaii; very safe, 

 while listening to the monotonous chant of my compan- 

 ions "Aloha lio loa" (praise to the big horse), to scoop the 

 fingers through a brook for small fish, then eat them alive. 

 The natives do not even chew their squirming captives ! 



"Kahuna," says Lizard (he means native doctor, witch- 

 doctor, sorcerer, and now addresses the outsider as such 

 by reason of our increasing friendship), "my mother 

 buried five of us alive." "Why?" I ask. "To stop the 

 volanco," replies Lizard.f 



There is no traO. We pass cacti, sprawling in families 

 like turtles, oval, ragged and dusty, some rampant and 

 pugnacious, others on their backs. The hau tree (Hibiscus 

 tilaceus), the banana, the ti (dracosna terminalis), begonias 

 and yellow blooms of the shrub ohenaupaka (scsevola gla- 

 bra) are seen in a maze of trailers, fungi and mosses. 



Polypodium spectrum, above Waipi( 



Fragrant wood-strawberries grow here and we may eat 

 them with the slipioery, sour guavas found on all sides. 

 A valley to the right is completely overspread by nastur- 

 tiums of enormous leafage and the smallest possible blos- 

 som. Somewhat pathetic it is, this growth, so many years 

 after its wrinkled seeds were planted by some New Eng- 

 land missionary, not quite content with palmetto, oAm,| 



1 Even at this time the burial of living children is not unknown on Hawaii. 

 The writer remembers an old woman, seamstress in a mission family, who 

 was supposed to have eaten several of her own children. 



|Ohia, the native apple (Metrosideros polymorpha> 



