Don’t Mess with Pele

Ancient Hawaiian gods aren’t real…but it’s best not to annoy them.

In 1998, I took a trip to Hawaii, the Big Island. Before leaving, I promised our receptionist at work that I’d bring her a souvenir, so I picked up some island sand, a small wooden bowl, one of those paper drink umbrellas, and a small piece of lava rock. I assembled the pieces, and gave our receptionist a little Hawaiian beach to keep on her desk until the time when she could make the trip herself. 

Unknown to me at the time was Pele’s Curse. According to many Pacific Islanders, Pele is the goddess of fire, and the legend says that she lives in a volcano. Anyone removing lava rock from one of the islands would be cursed by Pele for life, and it would be a life of misfortune and misery. The caretakers of Hawaii’s national parks receive dozens, maybe hundreds, of lava rocks every month, mailed from tourists who had unknowingly taken lava, and were suffering maladies, they believed, as a result of the curse.

Not very long after my trip to the Big Island, I developed kidney stones. Kidney stones are no laughing matter. The damn things hurt. I thought nothing of it at the time…just one of the trials that we aging citizens have to put up with. I got over the kidney stones in a few weeks, and went on about my life.

A few years later, I went back to Hawaii, the Big Island again, for another vacation. I was in the middle of another episode of kidney stones, painful, but not bad enough to cancel our trip. I remember sitting back in the cheap seats of the airplane, reading a book about Hawaiian gods, and there it was: Pele’s Curse. 

A light bulb went off in my head. Oh no! I had taken a piece of lava from Hawaii, and then suffered from kidney stones, and was at the time having another episode of kidney stones.  My mind made the link: kidney stones…stones…lava…Pele’s Curse! It was all connected! And then, of course, I laughed at myself and dismissed it as foolish superstition. Nobody with a lick of sense believes those things. 

Interesting coincidence, though…

Later in my hotel room, on the Internet, I learned the most surprising thing about Pele’s Curse. It was a fake curse—not a Polynesian legend, but a story made up by a park ranger, sometime in the 1980s, as a way to discourage tourists from taking lava rocks from the park. Word got around, people blamed their miseries on the curse, and the phony curse took on a life of its own. People really believed it, and when they got sick for one reason or another, they connected their misfortune with Pele’s Curse. The existence of the curse was known by many, but its phony origin was known to only a few, so Pele’s Curse had settled in as a “truth” about Hawaiian culture.

So, there I was, in my hotel room, now knowing Pele’s Curse was fake, and cursing myself for a fool for entertaining any connection between Pele and my kidney stones. I shut down my foolish thinking with a dismissive snort, but somewhere way back in my mind, the Pele-kidney stone connection lingered, niggling at me. It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid, but it wouldn’t let go.

There’s a fascinating place on the Big Island called the Waipio Valley. It’s a place of mystery, said to be favored by the Hawaiian gods. We were scheduled to spend a day there. 

On that day, my last act before leaving the hotel room was to go to the bathroom. We old guys do that a lot, and it’s a useful thing to do when you have kidney stones. As I was doing my business, I felt an odd sensation down there, and heard a very faint “clink” from the toilet bowl. I had passed a kidney stone. The thought hit, and I couldn’t stop it…kidney stone…stone…lava…Pele! I fished out the tiny stone—wondering why I was doing it—cleaned it, washed my hands, and then put the little stone in my pocket…just in case. In case of what, I didn’t know, but just in case.

It was a beautiful day in the Waipio Valley, and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, except for one incident. While stepping across a field of large rocks at the seashore, I missed my footing and fell, banging my chin on one of the rocks. It bled a little, and hurt a lot, but it troubled me because, really, I’m not that clumsy. I just don’t fall like that. My mind whispered…Pele?

Later, while riding a mule wagon here and there around the valley, we crossed a small stream. I suddenly had to pee urgently, so I told our group that I had to take a short break.

Out of sight of my traveling companions, while straddling that small stream, I suddenly became aware of my pocket…the one with the kidney stone. I reached into the pocket, took out the little stone, and hesitated. “This is really, really stupid,” I said to myself.

Then, holding the kidney stone over the little stream, I said something like: “Pele, I don’t believe in you, you’re curse is only a myth, and the myth itself is fake. What I have here isn’t even a lava rock, but I can’t give back the lava I took from you, so this will have to do.”

I dropped the kidney stone into the water, stared at the spot until the small ripples disappeared, then zipped up and rejoined my friends.

Funny, isn’t it? The tricks our minds play on us? Things we don’t believe affect us in spite of our disbelief. We don’t want to jinx a favorite sports team by predicting success. We carry a rabbit’s foot or four-leaf clover for luck. We get nervous if an astrologer or palm reader gives us bad news.  We can’t help but shiver a bit in a house someone tells us is haunted, or in a graveyard after midnight. 

It’s really nothing but imagination or superstition. But it feels like something…

And there’s this: I haven’t had a kidney stone in almost twenty years, since that day in the valley of the ancient Hawaiian gods.