320 WONDERFUL HAWAIMAN CRATERS 
This fabled being, according to Emerson, in a paper'on ‘‘ The 
Lesser Hawaiian Gods,” “could at times assume the appearance of 
a handsome young woman, as when Kamapuaa, to his cost, was 
smitten with her charms when first he saw her with her sisters at 
Kilauea.” Kamapauaa was-a gigantic hog, who “could appear as 
a handsome young man, a hog, a fish or a tree.” “At other times 
the innate character of the fury showed itself, and Pele appeared 
in her usual form as an ugly and hateful old hag, with tattered and 
fire-burnt garments, scarcely concealing the filth and nakedness of 
her person. Her bloodshot eyes and fiendish countenance para- 
lized the beholder, and her touch turned him to stone. She was a 
- jealous and vindictive monster, delighting in cruelty, and at the 
slightest provocation overwhelming the unoffending victims of her 
rage in widespread ruin.” : 
The superstition regarding the Goddess Pele was thought to 
have received a death blow in 1825, when Kapiolani, an Hawaiian 
princess and a Christian convert, ascended, with numerous attend- 
ants, to the crater of Kilauea, where she publicly defied the power 
and wrath of the goddess. No response came to her defiance, she 
descended in safety, and faith in Pele’s power was widely shaken. 
| Yet as late as 1887 the old superstition revived and claimed 
an exalted victim, for in that year the Princess Like Like, the 
youngest sister of the king, starved herself to death to appease 
the anger of the Goddess Pele, supposed to be manifested ‘in 
Mauna Loa’s eruption of that year, and to be quieted only by the 
sacrifice of a victim of royal blood. Thus slowly do the old super- 
stitions die away. 
  
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