This is an IHeart podcast.

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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A Production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Ancient gods are more than just superstitions.

They reflect how people of the past felt about the lands they lived in.

The terror of a thunderstorm, the shock of an earthquake, the beauty of a sunset.

These things are just as impressive to us now as they were to ancient peoples. When you're as small as a human being, the sheer power of

nature cannot help, but feel divine. Take the land of Hawaii. This chain of islands would not

exist if not for volcanic activity, and by the time people settled

there, it's unsurprising that the volcano would become a fixation of their mythology.

Literally and figuratively, volcanoes towered over their lives, and no one knew when an eruption

might consume a village.

Nobody in the Hawaiian Pantheon is as beloved and feared

in equal measures as Pele, the goddess of volcanoes. She lives in the heat of Mount

Kilauea, a volcano that remains active to this day. According to Hawaiian oral tradition,

Pele came from Tahiti in search of a home. Her journey mirrors that

of many Polynesian peoples, traveling across the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Pele was pursued by her older sister, the goddess of the sea. She settled on the furthest

Hawaiian island, Ni'i-How, but her sister extinguished her flame. So she continued east from island to island

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