Pele

How to recognise Pele

1. Fire and lavaLava, flames or the glowing Halemaʻumaʻu crater burn behind or around her; this is her key sign, since her body is lava, fire and steam.
2. FaceShe is a Native Hawaiian woman with warm brown skin and Polynesian features, never pale and never blond.
3. Long dark hairHer hair is long and black, flowing or streaming, as Hawaiian narrators and later retellings describe it.
4. Red or white garmentAccounts differ: she may wear red, or white as a woman seen in dreams and as a wanderer.
5. ʻŌʻō (digging stick)The digging stick is the tool she used to dig her fire pits; her divining rod Paʻoa is a separate object.
6. The eggShe may hold the egg her mother gave her to carry, which hatched into her sister Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, "Hiʻiaka in the bosom of Pele."
7. White dogA small white dog is a form she is said to take or to travel with, one of her many kinolau (body forms).
8. ʻŌhiʻa lehua and ʻōheloRed ʻōhiʻa lehua blossoms and ʻōhelo berries sometimes appear with her, the berries being her fitting offering.

Names and titles

• Pele of the Sacred LandPelehonuamea, her full name, glossed 'Pele of the sacred land' (also 'of the red earth')
• The Woman of the CraterKa wahine o ka lua, because she lives at Halemaʻumaʻu
• The Earth-Eating WomanKa wahine ʻai honua, 'the earth-eating woman', for lava that consumes land and makes new land
• Tūtū PeleGrandmother Pele, a respectful family name used for her
• The Egg She CarriedHer sister Hiʻiaka hatched from an egg Pele was given to keep