Don’t Leave Hawai ` i

BY L.A. BERRY

Remember when The Brady Bunch went to Hawai`i, and Bobby found that Tiki doll he decided to keep as a souvenir, then bad things started happening to him and the family?

Pele’s Curse is like that only (so the legend goes) worse. It will strike anyone who thinks they can take lava rocks out of their Hawai`i home.

View from a heliocopter of pahoehoe lava and ‘A’a flows on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Wikipedia Commons

Pele’s Tears are solidified droplets of lava that form during an eruption.

Public Domain, U.S. National Park Service

Painting by David Howard Hitchcock, c. 1929, previously displayed in the Kilauea Visitor Center of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Just ask the Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park or the Hilo Post Office. Both have become accustomed to receiving thousands of apologetic packages each year from tourists who regretted taking lava rocks from the Hawai`ian Islands. In most cases, their apologies include the rocks they want to return and end their bad luck.

Hilo postmaster Alton Uyetake has received such items as a plastic container filled with black sand and a simple note, “Tell Pele I’m so sorry.”

Skeptical? So were most of the souvenir-collecting tourists who disregarded the warning only to be met with the death of a pet, relationship or loved one back home.