Polynesian Gods of Olympus and Hades

Hikuleo

Closely bound up with their tangled structure of mythologic notions, yet forming a world of themselves, are the Polynesian conceptions of a hereafter; a somewhat ennobled reflection of the life on earth, and yet much nearer to the present world than to that of the gods. It is only the lord of the underworld who comes into the same line of reverence with them. He is Ikuleo, or Hikuleo, Maui's younger brother, lord of Bolotu, the nobles' heaven, and god and guide of their souls. Near his palace bubbles up the fountain of the water of life, which awakes the souls of departed princes to renewed youth, quickens the dead, heals the sick. Or he dwells in a cave on Bolotu, unable to go further from it than the length of his own tail, which has grown into the ground. Here he carouses with his wives and children, compelling the souls of chiefs and Matabulus to wait on him. A thirst after souls is one of his chief characteristics, but an emigration led by Tangaroa's sons carried off some of his subjects, and he endeavoured accordingly, by summoning the ghosts of chiefs, to attract them back from Tonga. He had a special fancy for the first-born of the noblest families; and once such a mortality took place among these that Hikuleo had to be chained up in the earth by Maui, and in heaven by Tangaroa.

Wakea and Milu

He [Hikuleo] appears in Samoa, as Siuleo, at the head of the fighting men, whom he leads to victory if he is disposed to accept their sacrifices favourably. In Hawaii we know him as Milu and Wakea, two aspects of the same ideal. From the legends told here of him and his attendant shades we may form a sort of mosaic picture of the Polynesian Hades and Paradise. Milu's kingdom in the lower world will last for ever, and has existed from the beginning; but persons apparently dead have brought back intelligence of it. It is level and fertile, also fairly light; everything grows of itself there. In Milu's palace court are facilities for enjoyment of every kind. The best-looking women who arrive are selected by Milu for himself, and are then tabooed to the other Akuas.

Another ruler of the underworld is Wakea; his kingdom was founded later than Milu's. Each kingdom is tabooed, and no one can go from one to the other. Before Wakea became a god, he was a sovereign on earth; Milu was also a man, but not so good. Down below Wakea rules over the higher souls, Milu over the lower. Departed souls are borne away in the direction of the setting sun, to Kane's islands. There they either leap from a rock into the sea, or disappear through a hole in the ground. A place in Oahu, near the West Cape, has been said to be the spot; probably with a reminiscence of the similarly situated sacred spot in Pelew. But the souls do not come at once into the next world; they wander some time on the frontier, and if they are only apparently dead can return to the upper world. For this reason the recently departed soul is an object of fear, since its semi-corporeal apparition is enough to frighten one into madness. In Milu's kingdom the souls amuse themselves with noisy games; in Wakea's a solemn peace reigns. The place where the wicked are tormented, which is represented as the night of the everlasting death, and as a dark deep place at the back of the heaven where the stars are hung, may well have been imported from some foreign school of thought.

Pele's Hair - a volcanic glass in strands. [From Wikipedia]

Pele

In Hawaii, legends of a fire-goddess, Pele, belonging to the nether world, were called forth by the mighty scale of the volcanic phenomena, and grew into a cycle of myths in harmony with the Hades-legends. Superficial observers, regarding her as the most powerful of all the gods, ascribed to her not only the volcanic fire, but also the Hawaiian deluge. When Pele started upon her journey to Hawaii, which in those days was a monstrous desert waste, with the same mountains as now, but with no fresh water, even no sea, her parents gave her the sea to carry her boat. While she was sailing to Hawaii, the flood rose till only the highest mountain-tops were visible; but the sea shortly went down again till it reached its present level. Pele, with her terrible brethren, the lord of steam, the lightning, the thunderer, the fire-spitter, the boat-smasher with fiery eyes, the sky-splitter (a sister), and the rest, retired to the mountains. In the roar of the lava-waves the Kanaka hears their voices. Pele often changed her quarters; driven out by the sea-god Moana, she now dwells in Kilauea, the only volcano of the group that is at present active. Even after the conversion of the islanders to Christianity the crater of Kilauea long remained under strict taboo. Even in the most recent times strangers have noticed their native guides, with bared heads, throwing into the lake of fire little offerings like glass beads, coral, shells, etc., with the salutation Aloha Pele! while the hair-like threads of glass, "Pele's hair," which are found only in the crater of Kilauea, may serve as a memento of the once mighty goddess.