|
|
Suzanne Cooper - The Wrath of Madame Pele
Category: Body Adornment.
This piece was made using flat peyote with surface embellishment.
Hawaiian legend says that Madame Pele the Fire Goddess lives within Kilauea, the erupting volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. In a fit of wrath she created the volcanos and still causes the eruptions and chooses the directions of the lava flows. Her ghostly long-haired image is even sometimes seen in pictures of eruptions. Madame Pele can change her form from a withered old woman to a ravishing beauty; her moods can change from gentle to fiery hot. A fearsome wrath indeed!
Many versions account for how Madame Pele wound up living in Kitauea, but they all follow a general outline. It seems that the beautiful young goddess, from a large family of gods, was struck by wanderlust. Tucking her young sister, who was conveniently in the form of an egg, under her armpit, she set out to see the world. Fortune had its ups and downs for young Pele. For one, she was ravished by a real swine, Kama pua’a the Pig God. Moreover, she fought desperately with her sister, Namaka o Kahai, over the love of a handsome young chief. Pele’s sister killed her and smashed her bones on the Hana coast of Maui at a spot called Kaiwi o Pete (the Bones of Pele). Putting herself back together, Madame Pele set out to make a love nest for her lover and herself. She chose Kilauea Volcano and has resided there since. The Hawaiian gods were toppled literally and figuratively in 1819 but stories abound of Pele’s continuing powers. Modern-day kahuna are always consulted and prayers offered over construction of an imu in which the luau pig is roasted. The rangers at Volcanoes National Park receive hundreds of stones every year that were taken as souvenirs and then returned by shaken tourists, who claim bad luck stalked them from the day they removed Pele’s sacred stones from her volcano.