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Now That’s A Fucking Deity : Pele Edition

  • Writer: AuntieWicked
    AuntieWicked
  • Jun 15, 2010
  • 6 min read

Now That’s a Fucking Deity:

Pele Edition

(watch out kids lumi’s go her potty mouth on today)


by: a.illumi


There are so many terrible books, blogs, songs, and other badly written bits of nonsense out there regarding the idea of goddesses. The creators of this poo-poo fail us much like feminism often does: they fail us in lacking teeth, lacking scholarly value, fail us in falling into vague and emotional language, and most of all they fail us in presenting their stories in gimmecky woo-wah fashions that leave us feeling damp and unconvinced. But what if, focus hard here, what if GODDESSES were revered as much as the christian big G god? or some other religions capital G god? What if female deities were taken seriously? What if prayers and rituals in the direction of a Goddess were not seen as hilarious and pitiful acts of new age granola-ness?For herself, Lumi believes it would be really actually fucking something if little girls grew up being offered a religious mythology that included them, even in the HIGHEST OFFICES. It is Lumi’s firm belief that a woman deity would have some words and advice to say that might contradict and counterbalance…say the words of the Christian churches.  Churches whose words are founded on principles written and professed by a series of eccentric mostly single and often homeless or monastaried men. I can only believe that volunteering for persecution as a man was generally very different than being persecuted and ignored because one is a woman.Note that this day to day because you are a woman sort of persecution gains us no sort of spiritual cred. Okay, sometimes it does but we usually end up dead and footnoted, which is also lame – I am just saying. But back to my point, if they gave us a woman deity,so sayeth Lumi,  she would never tell us to obey more and forgive those who wrong us more. A woman deity would know ,for most of us, we need not be made more humble and self-effacing. If they gave us a woman deity she could lay down the law of equality and help gives us the strength and confidence to face that double edged sword. It is with these thoughts in mind that A.Wicked and I have decided to do some rustling around in the tatters and scraps of goddess stories left around and try with all our might to breathe some life back into them. For today, I give you a goddess who surely deserves a capital G. She is fierce and multi-talented. She even calls a tropical paradise her home. Best of all she can be celebrated easily with Beavis’ legendary chant…“fire, fire, fire”

*PELE* Pele is indeed the goddess ofFIRE FIRE FIRE! You can thank her for ALL of the enchanted islands of Hawaii! The land itself is made from her and of her. Pele is living in and IS the amazing Kilauea . She is credited withadding 70 acresto the land of Hawaii since her immigration from Tahiti. Immigration or mad cap running away from her sister trying to kill her.  U know one or the other? But that’s all in the past.Today, she lives in Halemaumau crater of Kilauea. From the throne of Kilauea she rules ALL the volcanic activity. She is also said to have goddessing powers over lightning, dance, and of course as mentioned fire,fire,fire. Also, at least once, turned someone into a gnarly tree. And as if all that wasn’t enough, she is/was also a consumateholua racer(I know I didn’t know what that was either).  But here one is:


Oh oh and she had a comic book character named after her once! Perhaps,it is no surprise, that the goddess of hot lava was also able to take the form of a hottie and distract and seduce the local chiefs! She like Kali creates and destroys. More like Kali Lite though also  and Unlike many goddess figures and female characters of myth she embodies at least TWO aspects of the (triple goddess). Even more impressive is that she goes beyond the usual three archetypes and comes out like a hazy super anti-hero all very  complex and multi-layered.  We can imagine ourselves more like her than say your average PURE or FILTHY woman figurines in stories.Pele is mother(of the land) and Whore – actual double bahm!  Jealous whore, she is angelic creator and raging destroyer. Not to disimilar from some taken much more seriously capital letter god you might know?


My favorite legend that tells of Pele is this: The Puna Chief Who BoastedThere was once a Puna chief who could talk of nothing but his own district. Wherever he went he boasted of Puna.

  • “Beautiful Puna,” he chanted.“Its fields and its gardens are shiningLike a mat spread over the hillsideAnd edged above by the forest.”

“Be careful,” people warned him. “Remember Pele! That goddess does not like boasting!”


“I fear her not!” the chief answered. “She lives above in the pit, tending her fires. Puna is safe from her evil.” And he went on boasting:

  • “My country is beautiful Puna,Land where all food plants are growing,Land where bananas hang heavy,Where potatoes burst from the earth,Where sugar-cane stalks are the sweetest.“My country is sweet smelling Puna.To the seaman who comes near our coastThe winds bear the fragrance of hala.Birds gather over our treesDrinking the nectar of blossoms.My country is beautiful Puna.”

A wise kahuna heard these words. “Alas!” he said. “Your boasting has angered Pele. Return to your country. You will finds its beauty laid waste.”



“Ho!” shouted the chief. “I do not fear your words! No harm can come to Puna!” But for all his shouting the chief was frightened. As quickly as wind and paddle could take him, he returned. He reached a point of land, beached his canoe, climbed a hillside, and looked toward his beautiful Puna.


Black smoke hung heavy over all his land. As he looked, wind lifted the smoke and he saw no fertile fields and gardens, but a waste of twisted lava. No flowers bloomed in the forest, only spurts of flame. No fragrance of hala was borne on the wind, but the bitter smell of smoke.


Pele had been angered by the chief’s boastful words. Now he knew that no land below her fire pit was safe from her power.



Powerful Pele:



She is said to still appear sometimes as a beautiful woman in white, a dog, or an old lady – all with red eyes. Sometimes helping, sometimes observing, other times tempting innocents into the lava. And if there was any question as to her prowess as a goddess – her ladyship has been maintaining a steady lava flow since 1983. Now that’s a fucking deity I could cower under! 


You might wonder why such a mighty goddess is no longer worshiped? Apparently, some Christian Missionaries are said to have put on some event where a high priestess of Pele asked Jesus to protect her before going into the volcano.   Through trickery, divine intervention, or Pele’s wildly unpredictable temperement the priestess came out alive.

Jesus and Christianity won over the Goddess living people with their magic mojo. One would think someoen would have called for a second opinion? recount? explanation? Well since no one has yet: The aunties do!

We call for a recount on the votes for who we get a choice to worship!   We are writing in some females, firstly Pele.

So there she is Folks, Pele, like all goddesses laying mysteriously in snow white glass coffins, choked on apples of a world that was and continues to be terrified of women in power…even when that  “in power” is as a magically impossible god head. So, Pele, my dear, I absolutely vow to refuse silence in regards to you and treat your story in any less regard than other magical tales of religiousness.


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