Post #7007 by Tiki Chris on Wed, Aug 28, 2002 10:45 AM

In researching for our honeymoon on the Big Island, I came upon many of the legends regarding the goddess Pele. One story that kept popping up was that of Pele standing on the side of the road hitchiking. According to the legend, she would be in the form of either a beautiful young woman w/ long flowing hair or as a crippled & elderly woman. In both manifestations, the goddess would be holding a cane & accompanied by a dog. Furthermore, if you didn't pick her up or offer her kindness of some sort, her wrath would either bring ill fortune to you or your loved ones or, more likely, there would be a devistating eruption on the island.

Anyhoo...

We had left our accomodation near Honaunau & were venturing on to Volcano Village to stay for a few of nights. I was drive & Tiki Emi was asleep in the passenger seat of our rental. Joking on the flight over from Honolulu, we had agreed to pick up anyone fitting the description of Pele that we might encounter on on journeys.

Note: I'm an avid fan of hitchiking (in certain non-threatening circumstances) - I haven't done it in a long time but back in the day I logged about 10,000 miles hitchiking (mostly throughout Southern Africa), whereas my wife is adamently opposed to the idea of hitchiking.

So...as we zoomed down the road to Volcano (near the turnoff for Southpoint), I was surprised to see a tan, svelt young woman w/ her hair blowing in the wind & holding what appeared to be a staff standing on the side of the road w/ her dog.

'Hey uh Em...there's a beautiful young woman w/ long hair, a staff & a dog hitchhiking.'

"OH OH! Pick her up!"

Long story short:

Her name was Brandy (from California or Oregon). She worked on an organic farm in South Kona. She was on her way to a drum circle in Puna. The staff? A dijeridoo. She told us about a few off the beaten path sites (we had some for her too though), about the danger of the deceptively calm currents of the Pacific, about how the DEA totally messed w/ locals, & about how crystal meth had unfortunately taken the place of marijuana as the drug of choice among local youth.

But...she did have this piercing look in her eyes & did seem to just disappear when we dropped her off near Volcanoes National Park.

Tiki Chris

[ Edited by: Tiki Chris on 2002-08-28 10:51 ]