243 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES* 
they said, were always accompanied by dreadful 
earthquakes, loud claps of thunder, with vivid and 
quick-succeeding lightning. No great explosion, 
they added, had taken place since the days of 
Keoisa ; but many places near the sea had since 
been overflowed, on which occasions they sup¬ 
posed Pele went by a road under ground, from 
her house in the crater to the shore. 
These few facts were gathered from their ac¬ 
counts of its origin and operation ; but they were 
so incorporated with their traditions of its super¬ 
natural inhabitants, and fabulous stories of their 
romantic adventures, that we found no small diffi¬ 
culty in distinguishing fiction from fact. Among 
other things, we were told, that though, according 
to the traditions preserved in their songs, Kirauea 
had been burning ever since the island emerged 
from night, it was not inhabited till after the 
Tai-a-kahina rii, sea of Kahina’rii, or deluge of 
the Sandwich Islands. Shortly after that event, 
they say, the present volcanic family came from 
Tahiti, a foreign country, to Hawaii. 
The names of the principal individuals were 
Kamoho-arii , the king Moho; moho sometimes 
means a vapour, hence the name might be the 
king of steam or vapour— Ta-poha-i-tahi-ora , the 
explosion in the place of life— Te-ua-a-te-po> the 
rain of night— Tane-fietiri , husband of thunder, 
or thundering tane*—and Te-o-ahi-tama-taua , 
fire-thrusting child of war, or the child of war 
with a spear of fire; these were all brothers, and 
two of them, Vulcan-like, were deformed, having 
* Tane is the name of one of their gods, as well as 
the name of the principal god formerly worshipped by 
the Society Islanders; in both languages the word also 
means a husband. 
