The Legend of Pele’s Curse

Pele’s curse is a legend that can be likened to pop culture. Remember when The Brady Bunch went to Hawai`i, and Bobby found that Tiki doll he decided to keep as a souvenir, then bad things started happening to him and the family?

Pele’s curse is like that only (so the legend goes) worse. It will strike anyone who thinks they can take lava rocks out of their Hawai`i home.

Just ask the Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park or the Hilo Post Office. Both have become accustomed to receiving thousands of apologetic packages each year from tourists who regretted taking lava rocks from the Hawai`ian Islands. In most cases, their apologies include the rocks they want to return and end their bad luck.

Hilo postmaster Alton Uyetake has received such items as a plastic container filled with black sand and a simple note, “Tell Pele I’m so sorry.”

Skeptical about Pele’s curse? So were most of the souvenir-collecting tourists who disregarded the warning only to be met with the death of a pet, relationship or loved one back home.

“You don’t want to be on the receiving end of Pele’s curse,” advises travel guide John C. Derrick. “The Hawai`ian Islands boast of unmatched beauty and for most people, lava rocks are perfect souvenirs. It’s the reason many are tempted to take a piece of it home with them. But you should think twice before taking anything from there.”

Lava Rocks

What makes a lava rock such a compelling forbidden fruit? The very nature of their creation: They’re solidified lava. Even for facts-only scientific types, that’s a lot of geologic energy to hold in your hands.

The eight main Hawai`ian Islands are made up of 15 volcanoes, which are the youngest in an even longer linear chain, of more than 129 volcanoes above and below sea level, that stretch for more than 3,500 miles across the North Pacific.

More than a dozen types of lava rock can be created by these island volcanoes, starting at `A`a (“ah-ah”) the Hawai`ian term for lava flows consisting of rough blocks called clinkers, and here, volcanic ash is nothing like the softy fluffy residue in your campfire. This ash is slightly larger than the head of a pin, and not only as abrasive as finely crushed window glass but electrically conductive when wet, too.

Black sand (basalt) beaches form quickly when hot lava meets cold ocean, and can be just as temporal as volcanic rock cedes to pounding waves. Some volcanic flows that enter the water and shatter release olivine, found in picritic basalt, to form green sand beaches like Mauna Loa’s south coast. Or look for iridescent basaltic or pahoehoe lava, whose paper-thin iridescent crust looks like an oily sheen.

Volcanic hailstones, or lapilli, are pea-size fragments that form up in turbulent clouds before falling to earth, like those created during the 1790 Kilauea explosion.

Limu o Pele (“seaweed of Pele”) refers to thin flakes of basaltic glass formed when pahoehoe lava enters the ocean. As waves wash over streams of lava, trapped water boils, resulting in delicate, steam-filled bubbles of lava. Pele’s Hair refers to thin strands of volcanic glass drawn out of molten lava often carried high into the air during fountaining. Pele’s Tears are bits of molten lava that solidify into sphere-shaped, jet-black particles often found at the end of a strand of Pele’s Hair.

Loihi, the youngest volcano in the Hawai`ian chain, is covered with glassy “pillow lava,” the shape basalt lava takes when erupted from underwater. Limu, or reticulite, are lacelike honeycombs of basaltic pumice. Volcanic bombs earn rounded shapes and colorful names while airborne: bread crust, ribbon, spindle, spheroidal and (we’ll leave this to your imagination) “cow-dung” bombs.

So many lava rocks so much temptation…

Pele’s Curse – Lava Curses

Pele’s curse was said to have started when Pele (Hawai`ian for ‘lava’) the goddess of fire and volcanoes, who lived in the crater of Kilauea, became enraged by a callow visitor taking one of her lava rocks as a souvenir. To her, the rocks and sand were her children and taking one was like taking her family from its home. To this day, in retribution, she will place a curse on any rock stolen from her and ensure misfortune finds its thief.

The legend of Pele’s curse says, “Her body is the lava and steam that comes from the volcano. She can also change form, appearing as a white dog, old crone, or beautiful young woman.” Her curse will only lift once her stolen property has been returned.

USPS permits customers to mail rocks, providing they are properly packaged and the postage paid. In 2020, regretful returns of lava rocks by tourists to Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park weighed in at more than 2,000 pounds.

“I took this rock when I visited Hawaii in October 1974,” read one letter. “A few months later I met the man I eventually married. For 16 years this man has made my life miserable. I am truly sorry for taking the lava rock and I would like for it to be returned to its place of origin.”

Even the USPS News site carries stories of tourists whose lives went on the rocks. After leaving with a bottle of sand and a piece of coral in 2007, tourist Karen Wade lost her two dogs, her home and her marriage. When she returned to Hawai`i with a new partner in 2016, she left the rocks alone. “We brought back only suntans and memories,” she said.

There are hundreds of similar letters, say Linda Ching and Robin Stephens, who collected apologies from tourists as research for their book, Letters to a Goddess. They also learned the Pele’s curse began not with a volcanic goddess but as a hoax by a disgruntled 1946 park ranger tired of visitors taking rocks as souvenirs. Then, as now, removing objects including minerals from any national park is illegal and considered environmental desecration.

In Serge King’s 1999 look at the story of Pele he wrote, “There is absolutely no Hawaiian tradition relating to Pele’s concern about rocks. There is one legend, from the black sand beach of Punalu’u west of Kilauea that says there are male and female rocks there that give birth to baby pebbles, and if you take a rock from there another rock will not be able to make babies and the beach will eventually disappear. The ranger’s version was probably based on this one.”

Is it the power of Pele or the power of belief? Ching and Stephens say Hawai’ian culture has always understood the power in elemental objects and held reverence for pōhaku, or lava stones. They suggest the act of contrition in mailing them back is as powerful as believing the rocks have mana, to begin with.

“The curse is not the power,” observes Hawai`i resident Spencer Johnson, co-author of The One Minute Manager, “I believe the real message of the letters is that it’s always better to honor a place with aloha.”

This story about Pele’s curse appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by L.A Berry.