THE WOMAN OF THE PIT.

One day when Pele was in her home in the pit, she heard a rumbling. She took the regular attire of women and stood atop of a hill to look, and she saw a chief gliding upon his holua sled, down a cliff, and when he arrived at the bottom of the cliff, that was when the people cheered.

When the chief arrived up where Pele stood, on top of the cliff, she told him, “I will take the challenge to sled with you.”

Kahawali turned and replied, “Let’s go.”

When the incline of the cliff was right, Kahawali came out in front of her. The heat of anger of that woman of the pit rose, but she did not speak. That wondrous one imagined that Kahawali’s holua was faster than hers. When Kahawali reached the top of the cliff, Pele asked him to give his holua to her to try out.

He spoke sassily to Pele. “You think that you are a woman that can ask me for my holua and go gliding down the cliff?”

The frightening anger of that wondrous one quickly escalated and she stomped and there appeared an earthquake that cleaved the cliff in two, while thunder clapped and fire blazed on this side of him and that. When the crowd was watching, it appeared as if Kahawali was racing with the flowing fires of the lava, and they were filled with fright, and were filled with fear for the life of Kahawali.

When he reached the base of the cliff, and he looked and saw this woman coming down within lava. Here comes Pele, here comes Pele. And he ran with all his might to where his canoe was floating, and he got in, and he was chased by the river of lava and he sailed out to sea. The water began to boil and he was nearly caught and turned into volcanic rock.

Kahawali sailed on and he was saved, but he did not dare to return to Hawaii and stay near Pele.

(Alakai o Hawaii, 1/16/1930, p. 3)