The winter solstice is a significant event celebrated by many pagans around the world. It marks the shortest day and longest night of the year and has been observed since ancient times. Pagans view the winter solstice as a time of rebirth and renewal, as it represents the turning point when the days start to become longer again. This transition from darkness to light is often seen as a metaphor for personal growth and spiritual transformation. One common pagan celebration associated with the winter solstice is Yule. Yule is a joyous festival that involves various rituals and customs.
7 Hawaiian Legends Not To Be Ignored
Visiting Hawaii and experience something strange? Maybe you heard the distant and eerie sound of an army marching or maybe your rental car broke down randomly on the Pali highway. Or maybe the strange experiences started once you got home, when you displayed your lava rock souvenir proudly on your mantle. Perhaps you should read up on the ancient legends of the islands -- you don't want to get caught picking that pretty red flower.
Pour Some Gin For Pele
If you want to protect yourself and your family from the lava flow, you have to pay your respects to Pele, the volcano goddess. According to local legends, if you see a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair or an older woman with long, white hair, you must greet her with aloha and offer her help or respite. To really get on her good side, however, you have to visit her at Halemaʻumaʻu crater and give offerings of food, flowers, and gin. Yes, gin -- apparently Pele is a fan.
Don't Take Pork Across The Pali
Pele's influence is everywhere in Hawaii, but perhaps the strangest manifestation of her wrath is the myth that you can't take pork over the Pali Highway, which connects Honolulu with the windward side of Oahu. Apparently Pele and the demigod Kamapua‘a (a half-man-half-pig) had a bad breakup and agreed never to visit each other. If you try to bring pork over the Pali, you are symbolically trying to bring Kamapua'a from one side of the island to the other and Pele will stop you. If you do try, according to legend, your car will stop at some point on the journey and an old woman will appear with a dog. You have to feed the pork to the dog in order to continue through.
AdvertisementDon't Make Eye Contact With The Night Marchers
Be careful if you plan on doing any night hikes or midnight beach strolls. The night marchers are ghosts of ancient Hawaiian warriors and they're said to roam the islands at night visiting old battlefields and sacred sites. If you hear chanting, drums or marching or if you see torches, you're best bet is to run indoors or to lie quietly on your stomach -- if you make eye contact with the night marchers, you'll die and be forced to march with them for all of eternity. If you happen to have an ancestor marching, however, no one in the procession can harm you.
Don't Pluck The Red Lehua Blossom
The Ohia tree is often the first plant to grow on new lava flows, but don't even think of picking it's beautiful, red Lehua blossom as a souvenir. Both the tree and flower are rooted in Hawaiian legend. Ohia and Lehua were young lovers: he was a handsome trickster and she was the most beautiful and gentle girl on the island. But, one day Pele came across Ohia and wanted him for herself. When he refused her, she turned him into a twisted, ugly tree. Pele ignored Lehua's pleas to change him back, but the other gods felt sorry for the young girl. They couldn't reverse Pele's magic, but they did turn Lehua into a beautiful red flower and placed her on the tree so that the two young lovers would never again be apart. It is said that as long as the flowers remain on the tree, the weather is sunny and fair. But when a flower is plucked from the tree, rain falls like tears since Lehua still cannot bear to be separated from her beloved husband Ohia.
Keep An Eye Out For The Menehune
The menehune are said to be dwarf-like people who live in the forests and hidden valleys of Hawaii and hide from humans. Legend has it that they lived in Hawaii even before the Polynesian settlers and that they were excellent craftsmen, completing astounding engineering feats like the Menehune Fish Pond on Kauai. They are also said to have constructed an aqueduct called the Menehune Ditch on Kauai, which was built prior to Western contact and is considered an engineering masterpiece because the rocks are carefully squared and smoothed to create a watertight seal. Oh yeah, and they are said to have built it in one night.
The Curse of Pele: A Tourist Legend
Some time in the early or mid 1980s, a package arrived at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, containing lava sand taken from Black Sands Beach in 1969. The woman who took the sand evidently loved the Hawaiian islands a lot, as she and her husband returned frequently, despite the gradually escalating mishaps that struck them every time:
1st time-Cut my foot
2nd time-Scraped my arm at airport
3rd time-Lost my hearing and broke eardrum on crater in Maui
4th time-Sprained two toes on cement steps
5th time-Cut my finger
6th time-Husband had heart attack and I fell twice-1st time broke my left elbow; 2nd fall broke my kneecap in two places and crushed it.
Finally, in 1982, our two unlucky tourists saw a display at Volcano House, the historical hotel on the edge of Kilauea volcano, traditionally said to be Pele’s dwelling place. This display showcased letters from other tourists who had suffered the Curse of Pele: bad luck that struck them after they had taken lava rocks from Pele’s volcano. All these victims returned what they had taken, in hopes of lifting the curse. And so this couple did, too. I hope their future trips to the islands went better.
Every year, Hawaiian national parks, along with various Hawaiian tour companies and post offices near the national parks, receive thousands of pounds of returned lava. Along with the packages often come letters detailing the misfortunes that followed the souvenir takers after their transgression. The legend of Pele’s curse is widespread enough that Snopes actually classifies it as “True” (really, Snopes?) 1 . There is even an online service that will accept returned lava (with a voluntary donation) and return the rocks respectfully to Pele, along with an offering of orchids as an apology. The service also posts stories from curse victims and photos of returned rocks.
Here’s a typical story (from Hammond’s “The Tourist Folklore of Pele: Encounters with the Other”):
In spite of the warnings we read while on the Big Island, we picked up some pieces of volcanic rock at several road cuts on the south and southwestern part of the island. These were to be souvenirs for ourselves and our friends. We were on Hawaii in mid-December. Since we returned home, we’ve had a monstrous snowstorm which ruined our family reunion here at Christmas. My sister and I had the fIrst big fight of our lives and we are still not speaking to each other. Both my wife and I have had a terrible cold or flue [sic] bug since mid-January. And today another big snowstorm has ruined the grand opening of my wife’s new business. WELL, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We are returning to Pele all of her rocks. Please entreat her to release us from her terrible spell.
Let’s be clear: the Curse of Pele is not a part of indigenous Hawaiian belief. In fact, when missionary William Ellis visited Kilauea in 1823, he recorded that the native Hawaiians requested that the haole (foreigners) not “strike, scratch, or dig the sand” or eat the sacred ohelo berries, lest Pele’s displeasure fall on the Hawaiians. Or at least on everyone, Hawaiian and haole alike, since Pele’s anger generally takes the form of a volcanic eruption, not random bad luck: heart attacks, car accidents, or other misfortunes.
The tourist belief in Pele’s curse dates back to at least the 1940s, though Joyce Hammond cites some (weak) evidence that the urban legend may not have existed prior to 1929. Linda Ching and Robin Stephens, in the their book Powerstones: Letters to a Goddess, date the legend to 1946, when a park ranger spread the tale to discourage tourists from taking the rocks as souvenirs (It is illegal to take anything, animal, vegetable, or mineral, from a US National Park). Hammond recounts another origin theory: that tour bus operators invented the curse to discourage passengers from dirtying the buses with rocks and sand. This leads me to one of my favorite Pele curse stories:
A tour bus operator, on arriving at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, warned his passengers not to take rocks, as it was bad luck, and he didn’t want bad luck on his bus. One of the tourists decided that, as a paying customer, she could decide what to do or not do — and she took a rock.
When the other riders discovered what she had done, they all insisted that she get rid of the rock, but she refused. The other passengers continued to nag the woman as the bus drove on, until she finally gave in to the “superstitious fools”. The bus driver stopped the bus and opened the doors, and the woman went to the front of the bus and threw the rock out the open door, saying, “Are you all happy, now?”
But as she threw the rock, it hit the edge of the bus door and ricocheted back, hitting the woman on the head and injuring her badly enough that they had to take her to the hospital.
Authentic or not, the curse is a big hassle for the National Park Service. In addition to opening all the packages of returned rock (in 1995, Joyce Hammond wrote that Hawaii Volcanoes National Park got twelve to twenty packages a week; I don’t know the current numbers), all the rock has to be put someplace. Apparently, park employees used to try to return the rocks to the area where they came from, which is theoretically possible because the appearance of the rock varies with age. It’s difficult, though, and no doubt error-prone: as park personnel put it, such errors could mislead future geologists into false conclusions. So now (or at least as of 1995) the rock ends up in a pile behind the visitor center. The employees of one post office that gets a lot of these returns bring the returned rock and sand to the sea once a week, tossing them into the ocean at sunset. I’m not sure what the online lava return service does with their rock.
This misrepresentation of Pele’s legend naturally offends many native Hawaiians. I’d like to close this post with a quote from Thomas E. White, the Chief Park Interpreter of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the late 1980s:
The “folklore” of the misfortune associated with removal of volcanic rocks is not Hawaiian tradition or folklore at all, but rather a recently mistaken or altered perception of the character and characteristics of Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of the Volcano. Frankly, we are not interested in perpetuating this mistaken view of the Hawaiian’s genuine respect for Pele.
I’d disagree with the statement that Pele’s curse is “not folklore” — tourists are folk, like anyone else. But I’d agree that taking the rocks is disrespectful to the National Park Service, to the visitors who come after you, and to Pele herself.
So go, and enjoy. But leave the rocks.
[1] Actually, what Snopes admits to be true is that people believe in the curse, and return the lava that they took, but it’s far too fine a distinction for the internet, in my opinion.
All quotes are from Joyce Hammond’s article. The tour bus story is my paraphrase.
Thanks to Stephen Milano (@stphnmilano) for the tweet that inspired me to write this.
References
Cep, Casey N. Pele’s Curse. Pacific Standard, June 4, 2015.
Hammond, Joyce. “The Tourist Folklore of Pele: Encounters with the Other.” In Out of the Ordinary: Folklore and the Supernatural, Barbara Walker, Editor. University Press of Colorado, 1995.
Images
Hale Mau Mau, Ogura Yonesuke Itoh, early 20th century. Source: Wikimedia
‘A’a lava, Ed Shiinoki/US National Park Service. Source: Wikimedia
Curses and Lava Rocks in Hawaii
The legend is popular and powerful: remove a lava rock (or sand) from Hawaii and bad luck will follow. Many people swear it is true and return rocks hoping for a reprieve. But the reason to respect the curse is greater than mere superstition.
The curse is told in various forms, but always involves the idea that Pele, Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes, is angered when rocks or sand are removed and visits bad luck on the offender. The rumor-busting web site Snopes.com marks the legend as “true” — not true in the sense that they’ve interviewed the Goddess, but true that many people return the rocks because they have experienced what they see as bad luck. We’ve told some of the stories here (see link below) and of the two most common avenues of return: mailing the rocks back or asking a local gallery to repatriate the rocks in a forgiveness ceremony. The return of the rocks with an apology is said to remove the curse.
However, I see this view of the curse as backwards; the curse isn’t really about you, it’s about respect for these beautiful islands. These islands were formed by volcanic action, whether you call it Pele or geothermal activity. The opportunity to watch the act of creation is rare and wonderful. Leaving the land as you found it is a mark of respect everywhere. That, alone, is enough to forbid the taking of unauthorized souvenirs.
Even further, Native Hawaiians see themselves as linked to this land in a special relationship. Treating parts of the islands as trinkets rather than sacred objects is insulting. Even if you don’t agree, a courteous visitor does not steal from the home of the host. There are many island craftspeople who make wonderful keepsakes; buying them supports the local economy and artisans. That can also have a spiritual dimension — you are accepting an object offered for sale and created to help you recall the pleasant days spent in Hawaii. Why not take back the positive energy from warm memories of welcome and hospitality?
But, as with mothers everywhere, when reason and education aren’t enough to regulate misbehavior, we follow with a threat. Don’t take the rocks while on your Hawaii vacation, or else!
Yule is a joyous festival that involves various rituals and customs. It is typically celebrated around December 21st, although the specific date may vary depending on the traditions followed. During Yule, pagans gather to honor and celebrate the natural cycles of the Earth.
Many rituals involve lighting fires or candles to symbolize the return of the sun. The warmth and light provided by these fires are seen as a representation of hope and the promise of new beginnings. Gift-giving is also an integral part of Yule celebrations. It is a way to express gratitude and share abundance with loved ones. Some pagans believe that the act of giving and receiving gifts strengthens the bonds of friendship and community. Feasting is another important aspect of Yule. It is a time to indulge in rich, comforting foods and drink. Traditional Yule fare often includes roasted meats, root vegetables, spices, and mulled wine or cider. In addition to Yule, there are many other winter solstice celebrations practiced by different pagan traditions. For example, the ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a week-long festival honoring the god Saturn. During this time, social hierarchies were temporarily suspended, and people engaged in merriment, gift-giving, and feasting. The winter solstice pagan celebrations vary from culture to culture, but they all share a common theme of embracing the darkness and looking forward to the return of light. Whether through Yule, Saturnalia, or other traditions, pagans honor this celestial event and connect with nature and the cycles of life..
Reviews for "How to Celebrate Winter Solstice in a Pagan Manner"
1. Sarah - 2/5 stars - As someone who doesn't follow pagan beliefs, attending a Winter solstice pagan celebration was way outside of my comfort zone. I found the whole event to be quite strange and confusing. The rituals and chanting seemed unnecessary and over-the-top to me. I felt like an outsider the entire time, unable to connect with the people around me. While I respect everyone's right to celebrate in their own way, this particular celebration just wasn't for me.
2. John - 3/5 stars - I attended the Winter solstice pagan celebration with an open mind, hoping to learn more about different cultural practices. However, I was slightly disappointed with the event. The lack of organization and structure made it difficult to understand what was happening. It felt more like a disorganized gathering than a proper celebration. Additionally, the rituals seemed too obscure and exclusive, making it hard for newcomers like myself to fully participate or appreciate the significance. Overall, the winter solstice pagan celebration didn't live up to my expectations as an educational and inclusive event.
3. Emma - 2/5 stars - I decided to attend the Winter solstice pagan celebration out of curiosity, but I left feeling confused and unfulfilled. The event seemed to lack clear explanations about the rituals and their meanings. Moreover, I found some of the practices to be odd and uncomfortable. While I respect people's right to practice their beliefs, I personally couldn't connect with the spiritual aspects of the celebration. It was an interesting experience, but not one that I would repeat in the future.
4. Thomas - 1/5 stars - Attending the Winter solstice pagan celebration was a waste of my time. I couldn't understand the purpose or significance of the rituals, and the whole event felt like a bunch of people indulging in silly superstitions. It seemed more like an excuse for a party than a meaningful celebration of any sort. I have no interest in participating in such events again.