National Park After Dark - She Who Shapes the Sacred Land: Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Grab your sunscreen, cameras and hiking shoes, this week we are heading to the incredibly diverse and magical landscapes of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. As we walk into these rainforests and barren volcanic landscapes, you can feel the mana, spiritual power, that lives here. Pele, the most revered goddess of Hawaiian Mythology, is to thank for the creation of these islands. She has the power to destroy them and to create life. She is the spirit behind the two most active volcanoes in the entire world. Rumors have spread saying that to steal from the island, is to steal from Pele, and will result in being cursed. When people start experiencing bad luck, thousands of letters of apologies returning stolen rocks make their way to the park service. Is this curse real? For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Beam: Use code NPAD for $20 offReel: Use code NPAD for 30% off your first orderDaily Harvest: Use this link to get up to $40 off your first order!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. When you feel the spirit of Aloha, you will know it. It is a life force with a deep moral code.

It is a connection deeply rooted in nature. Aloha is love. It is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. It is about sharing the essence of life and to care for our environment and each other. Deep within the Hawaiian culture is a respect and care for all living beings. It is the understanding of taking care of their home and respecting it. To understand that the world is connected in all different ways.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park holds some of the most sacred land in the Hawaiian Islands. Here lives the goddess of fire, who is the most revered goddess in Hawaiian mythology. She both destroys the land and creates it, and her spirit is felt every day. While these deep cultural beliefs live within Hawaiian people, visitors don't always feel the same way. And unfortunately, visitors and the islands reap the consequences. Welcome to National Park After Dark. So we're going to Hawaii again. we're back in Hawaii and I almost was like should I go to Hawaii again because we just launched

our Patreon episode which you can check out on our Patreon that is also in Hawaii so and then you did one like a couple weeks ago I'm like we're really we're really going to Hawaii a lot but I wanted to so here we are and you paid your ticket so and I paid my ticket I feel like you're trying to say something are we going to go to Hawaii physically yes but entire time I was researching this I'm like I want to go to Hawaii I want to go to Hawaii and I was reading about this park more and I'm like, oh, now I have to go to Hawaii. Like I haven't been to this national park before. So I'm ready. I'm not going to get arrested. I paid my ticket. I'm going. So. Okay. Awesome. Well, I'm excited to hear about your story because I have done zero

research into this national park because obviously I did the historic site and I steered cleared from the national park itself. But before we do, a couple things to touch base on. Let's see, this comes out to Monday the 31st, which means our newsletter came out today. Yes, yes, the newsletter. There's a lot of exciting stuff on there, including one of my favorite portions of it where we add a pet of the month that needs to be adopted. So if you're looking, there's one on there. Yeah, and I featured, we're going to try and feature a different shelter every single month or a different rescue organization. But for the very first one, we featured Dumb Friends Rescue League, which sounds really terrible.

The name is kind of harsh, but it was the shelter. They're dumb. That is the shelter that I adopted my first dog, Chaska, from. Actually, seven years ago tomorrow, the 27th. Stop it. Seven years ago? I know. It brings a tear to my eye.

So anyway, I chose that shelter. Happy Gotcha Day. Happy Gotcha Day. I love you. So there's that. There's other exciting things in there. We'll post updates in there about the podcast, things coming up, changes, things to look forward to, all that good stuff. So if you want to be subscribed to that, you can go on our website. There's a sign up pop up right there. And speaking of changes, you have another one. You might have noticed one right now while you're listening to this podcast. If you haven't noticed yet, look at your phone screen and look at

what you're listening to. Because you'll notice we have changed our podcast art. We worked with a really good friend of mine. Her name is Erin Sortwell. And she made this beautiful artwork that we have been thinking about for a while now. And she kind of brought this podcast art to life. So we hope you all like it. We're really, really stoked to have it.

And this will be our new podcast art for the foreseeable future. Yes. And we just had to include a range. on there from the Spirit of the Arch's story. I think that it made a lasting impression on us, and we really enjoyed the sentiment behind that story. So we had to include a raven. I love how we posted this on our social media if you didn't see it.

And a lot of people commented, like, I like the touch of the raven. So a lot of you caught onto it, which I thought was really, really cool too. Yeah. Anything else? No, I think that's all we had to catch up on for this week. So we can go straight into Hawaii. And of course, I want to tell you all about this amazing park because it's super, super interesting. We are going to Hawaii's volcano national park, and it is located on the biggest island of Hawaii, the big island, and also called Hawaii.

This park is home to some of the most unique geological, biological, and cherished landscapes on the entire planet. So here inside of this park lies two of the world's most active volcanoes, Kilauea and Mona Loa. because of this, this area has been designated as an international biosphere reserve in a United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organizational world heritage site. The area, or UNESCO. I was going to say, uh, I just wanted to say the whole name because I was like, I feel like it's important to know that this place is important for educational reasons, scientific, and there's a huge cultural presence in this park. and in Hawaii itself, but specifically we're going to discover some of the cultural significance here.

This area was established as the National Park on August 1st, 1916, and the purpose of making it into a national park was to be able to protect and study the areas of this volcano, but it was also put in place to protect the Hawaiian culture that is connected to it, because there are over 1.3 million people who visit every single year. That's a lot, I feel like, for a whole whole. Hawaiian National Park, just because it's not easily accessible, I don't think, from the lower 48, it's just somewhere that I would have to, like, save up a lot of money to go to and take a significant amount of time off for travel and things like that. Yeah, it's expensive and it's far. And I did read when I was looking into it that this past year in 2021, there was only, I think it said, 589,000 visitors. They were down visitors last year, 57%. And I think I didn't read too much into it, but I think it is because of COVID and the pandemic, because at one point, I don't think Hawaii was accepting any visitors at all.

Yeah, I would imagine that's absolutely the reason. Yeah, but I thought it was super interesting that that happened. And I'm pretty sure it's all open now. I hope it's open. I want to go, but. Cassie has a secret trip plan to Hawaii, and I'm calling it right now. Because, like, I just booked my plane tickets like eight minutes ago. You're going to get like an email notification that's like, Danielle, your flight is booked for March 2nd.

She has a tendency of doing that, like just spur of the moment type of thing. Like, by the way, are you busy next week? We're flying to Hawaii. It's like, okay, great. Thanks for checking with me first, but I'll go. By the way, no one can see this, but Danielle has a giant wine glass in her hair. It's like, it's literally bigger than her face. But it's only, see, I'll probably not even drink this tiny little bit in here. It's mead. It's not wine. Well, it's technically wine, I guess. It's honey wine, meed. I just really appreciate how big the glass is. It makes me feel sophisticated because... You look sophisticated. People do the swirl and say it has legs and stuff. I think that's a good indicator of a good wine. Yeah, and then you're supposed to drink it and then slosh it around at like the top of your mouth. And then I think you're supposed to smell. it or smell it before? What?

I don't know. I went to a winery in Italy. This was years ago and I don't remember the exact rules, but they taught us how to drink wine and how you get the most flavor out of it when you're drinking it. Oh, okay. Well, I drink about once every six months, so I'll keep that in mind for the wintertime, winter of 2022 when I drink again. Perfect.

Okay, we're off track here. Okay, back to Hawaii. Back to Hawaii, back to the park. This park is really cool because it starts at sea level. We're on an island, but it reaches elevations of 13,681 feet. So it's huge. Yeah, wow. It also includes 320,431 acres of land. More than half of this park contains the two volcanoes, and it's often used for hiking and camping, but that's mostly in the northwestern part of the area. The southwestern part of the area. The southwestern part of the area, of this park has several miles of coastline and it also has a visitor center that's located there. Also within this park is a road called the Chain of Craters Road. This is a 19 mile winding paved road

that brings you across different craters, dormant lava flows, geographical sites. And it leads through tropical rainforests. It has views of the Kilauea volcano. And this road, it's interesting. I thought it was really cool because I love parks that have a road that you can drive through to see things because it makes it accessible to everyone. And it just had a lot of

pull-offs where you could go see effects from the volcanoes and just a lot of different things. This road is also in an area where obviously there are volcanoes around that erupt frequently. And this road has been shut down multiple times because of lava overflow onto the road. That's a little frightening. Yeah, you're real close. You're really close. You're not close. You're in it. Yeah. You don't want to be in it, but you're in it. Yeah. And actually this, I forget what year it was. It wasn't too far. I'd have to look it up again because I very briefly skimmed over it. But this road was actually completely shut down because it had a significant amount of lava flow over it. And it was kind of

recently. It was somewhere in the 2000s. So maybe that's it. It definitely, it's a very active area. Okay. Maybe that's it. I'll look it up after. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen.

Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. this park is extremely diverse. The areas that are at sea level are protecting these beaches and these really lush tropical rainforest areas. But at the same time, this same park and region also has the Cayenne Desert. It is a dry and barren landscape that is mostly made up of remnants of lava, volcanic ash, sand and gravel. And while this region has been named a desert, it's actually not technically one. The Cayu Desert gets more than 39 inches of rain every single year,

which is very different than a desert. But because of the active volcanoes that are here, the rain contains large amounts of sulfur dioxide and turns the rain into acid rain. Oh, yikes. So is it labeled a desert because it's kind of like void of life? I'm assuming there's not a lot of life that is in that area. As far as vegetation and animals and stuff?

Yeah, there's actually no plant life at all. There's no vegetation here at all because the pH levels in the rain are so low that it creates this environment where no vegetation has the ability to grow. So it's extremely barren. So you go from this really tropical, beautiful lush green area to barren desert rock sand. The exact opposite. And it's also close. Yeah, it's so opposite, which I think is so. so cool. And I was reading about it and with the volcanic activity, the soil of the ground of like

the volcanic lava and all of that absorbs water really, really quickly. So it doesn't even have time if plants were there for them to absorb the water. So there's no way that any plants can survive here. Interesting. Yeah. But this area when the volcano isn't active, it's a very popular hiking area. But on the other side of that, the volcano is very active and this area shuts down frequently. When I was looking into some of the hikes that you can do, you can hike very close to Kilauea volcano. And up there are preserved footprints that are infetted into the lava that are, we believe, thousands of years old. And they're believed to be footprints of Hawaiian warriors that died there. And I didn't look super much into the history of these warriors.

But there was a battle going on during this huge eruption that happened in 1790. So hundreds of years. Did I do math, right? No. Okay. So hundreds of years, not thousands of years. But the worst eruption in history was in the year 1790. And the footprints that are up there today that you can still see are believed to be that of these warriors that were up there that suffocated from volcanic ash.

Wow. So, okay, regardless, that was. of years old, hundreds of years old. That's still an incredible story and that you can see remnants of that activity today. Yeah, it's really wild. And I think that there's a bigger story behind it that I didn't type into because I'm like, maybe this is a story we could do another time. But yeah, it's cool that you can see that and it's been connected to them. It says there were 80 warriors. And then in other instances, they say that it could be connected to some other history that's up there as well. So it's really, really interesting and something I would definitely

want to go see if I was visiting. This area, just to put into perspective of how active these volcanoes are, between the years 1912 and 2012, Kilauea has experienced 50 eruptions. And Monoloa has erupted 12 times over those years. So pretty active, I'd say. Very, very active. So 50 eruptions over 100 years. So like averaging once every two years, that's a lot. It is. And I was looking, I was just researching it and it came up in the news that actually Calawea is erupting currently. And it's kind of at the tail end of it. And they have, and I feel like whenever you say eruptions, I always picture like those huge eruptions where there's volcanic ash in the sky. It's devastating. There's lava everywhere. And I think eruptions can be very small.

two. It looks like that's what's going on now is, was a smaller one. I didn't read anything about devastation or anything like that, but it is active right now and it's been active since the 1980s, I believe. And while volcanic eruptions are known for their devastation and destruction, like how I picture it in my head, they're also extremely beneficial for the environment. When volcanoes erupt, their ash carries various amount of nutrients that are extremely, extremely beneficial for the soil, and they have huge contributions to the plant life in Hawaii. So even though they can be super devastating, they bring so much nutrients that is why Hawaii is so lush and so green is a history of the eruptions.

Interesting. With these frequent volcanic eruptions in Hawaiian culture, they believe that these eruptions are attributed to the goddess of volcanoes, which is Pele. Pele is a woman in Hawaiian mythology who is believed to have created the Hawaiian Islands, and her spirit is still believed to reside there to this day. When the ground rumbles and shakes with the cracking sounds of the volcano and smoke that can be seen in the sky, Hawaiians know that this is Pele at work. Pele is believed to embody the natural forces of fire, lightning, and wind.

She is both destructive and helpful in nature. For Hawaiians, she is Ohana, which is family, and she is a presence and power that can be felt across the islands, but especially around the active volcanoes of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Her story begins many, many years ago, sometime between 8.50 and 1250 AD. Pele is said to have been born on the island of Cahiki in Tahiti. When she was born, her parents knew immediately that she was going to be destined to be an extreme. extremely powerful woman. And because of this, her older sister was very jealous. When she was old enough, her uncle began to teach her all about nature and the environment. He taught her about the sun,

moon, tides of the ocean, winds, rain, and fire. He taught her about the power of fire and the deep lava volcanoes around them or within them. He was the first person to teach her about fire, and he taught her how to create it. He taught her chance and dances to grow fire from the volcanoes. When she was ready, he gave her a digging stick, which was thought to hold many powers of fire. This allowed her to create deep canyon fire pits. But one day, when her uncle wasn't around, she was using the digging stick and her newfound knowledge and accidentally burned down the sacred lands of her home. This was devastating for her family, and mythology says that her older sister was furious and

began hunting her down to make her pay. With this, Pelle's parents knew that they needed to get her out of there quickly, and with the help of some of her older siblings, she took off into the Pacific Ocean on a canoe. Pelle's sister was the goddess of the sea, and she was enraged. She followed them bringing huge waves. On her canoe, the first island that she reached was Kauai. When she arrived there, she dug deep into the earth, creating a pit of fire. Her eldest sister saw the flames and formed tidal waves over the ocean, forcing Pele to leave

the island. She next headed to the island of Oahu. Here again she dug and built her fire, but again, her sister brought in huge waves that demolished all of her flames. This area is known as Diamondhead on the island of Oahu now because all these places that I'm talking about are attributed to real places in Hawaii. This is Diamond Head. It's a huge hiking area in Hawaii. And if you look at pictures, it's this huge crater of volcanic, they're not active, but volcanic mountains. And it's this big crater like a dugout giant crater fire pit that she was creating.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Because her sister had brought in these huge. huge waves and demolished all her flames, she next headed on to the island of Molokai. And again, her sister did the same thing, and then she went to Maui. Here she ended up going to the western slopes of Maui, where she finally decided to stand up to her sister and to fight. A huge battle ensued between the both of them, and it went on for a long time. But eventually her sister tore through her body and broke her bones into pieces, and

Pele was killed. While her sister rejoiced at the victory, she looked off into the distance to see the Mona Loa volcano erupting on the island of Hawaii. It was at that moment that her sister realized that she was never going to be able to beat her, and that Pele's spirit was going to live on. Pele then went to the summit of the volcano of Kilauea, where she decided there she had found her home. She continued to erupt this volcanic chain on the Hawaiian Islands for me. many years. The consistent eruptions built up more and more land over these areas and ended up creating the islands of what they are today. Within these eruptions, she spread the ashes across the islands to make the extremely inhabitable islands that they are today. Kilauea is still

very active and it is believed every time that there's an eruption, it is Pelle. Pellei continues to live throughout Hawaiian culture today and she is held in a very deep respect. Pellea is really renowned for her strength and her destruction. On the island, she has said that she angers easily, but she forgives quickly. In the Hawaiian culture, she is a constant reminder of how to live on the island and how to respect the natural resources that live there. Many people pray and make offerings to her as she reminds them to be good stewards of the land and to live in harmony of the elements. She has the ability to cause great destruction if she believes that the land is not being used correctly. As she erupts, people believe that this is her way of dancing,

and it is her way of signing that she will destroy the land in order to create new life and enrich the soils in the land around her if she believes that the land is not being used correctly. As a guardian of these islands, it is believed by some that Pele has rendered a curse on Hawaii. As rumor has it, anyone who remove something native to Hawaii, like rocks or sand, will suffer the wrath of Pele. She views these things as her children, and anyone who removes them will be cursed for many years to come. We talked about that on our Patreon episode months and months ago. We did. The story is very similar to the petrified national forest, national park. we did a story on it was actually centered on the petrified forest and the conscience letters that are sent there.

But we talked briefly about Paley's Curse and I first heard about it from the Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch episode. Yeah, do you remember it? No, I've seen the Brady Bunch, but it's been so long and I did not see like, I didn't watch it a ton. So I definitely didn't see all the episodes. It was like they were on vacation. The family was on vacation in Hawaii. It's not like I know it by heart, but essentially like one of the kids like found like a little like teaky pendant or something. It was like on a necklace. And they were talking about how it was bad luck and it was bringing all this bad luck. And it was tied into the curse somehow. So that's how I first learned about it on a, I think that shows from the 60s, huh? Yeah, that's an older show for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure when. People are probably like yelling the time period of right now, but I don't know. I don't know. Give me a break. I'm 31.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And it mirrors the petrified forest very, very much. While it's illegal to remove rocks or sand from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, visitors often do, and thousands of people have returned to Hawaii to give back stolen goods or mailed them back to the park service after detrimental things have happened in their lives. It is rumored that the only way to rid yourself of Pelle's curse is to give the item back. The National Park reports receiving over 100 letters per month containing stolen rocks with apology letters. A hundred a month?

Mm-hmm. That's a lot. They get a lot of letters. And in just one example of a letter they received, it said, I took these rocks on our vacation, even though I was told not to, and my business had suffered ever since. Please return them to their right place so that my business may be restored. Well, don't take rocks, I guess. Remember the letter, God, we did this so long ago, but the letter when the woman was like,

or whoever wrote it, man, woman, was like, please take this back, yada, yada. Like, since I've taken it, my cat died, my refrigerator ran out or busted. Something, my windshield broke, like all these things. And they were all connecting it to taking a petrified rock. Yes, and it's so funny because the whole time I was researching this episode, I was thinking about your episode because this mirrors it so much. to what was going on in the petrified forest. But this kind of has, people think that it's due to some cultural things going on.

Yeah. So there's like some differences, but most of it is very, very similar. It seems like Paley is not the woman you want to cross. Yeah, she definitely has very, very deep connections into the islands. And Hawaiians hold her very, she's very respected and they believe that. she has this power over the island and they feel it and they experience it. And each year letters from people around the world or come from people, they'll get letters from Germany, Japan, Australia, and all of these are similar letters of distress, asking

park rangers to return the rocks to where they found them so that their life can return to normal. And I read an article that said that some of these packages will even come with price tags of like a $100 postage fees on them. That's how much they want to get these rocks back to Hawaii. Do you know if the park service does return them? So they do have to go through them and they don't always receive things that are actually from the national park and they have to be careful about if they actually are from the national park.

And from what I read, it seems like for the most part, it's actually a nuisance because when they come from outside sources, it could be bringing in bugs. It can be bringing in foreign things. So it can actually be a lot more dangerous to put it back into the environment. Because you don't want to accidentally introduce an invasive species of whatever kind. Yeah. So I get it wanting to unload your conscience, but at the same time, you're creating maybe another problem. Just don't take it in the first place.

It's illegal and you're not allowed. In one letter written on 1020, 2016, read, my girlfriend went on vacation to Hilo, Hawaii, and saw the big volcano. She brought me a piece, which I read would bring bad luck. I'm returning it because bad things have been happening, and it needs to go back home. I hope you can get it there. Thanks. And then a man by the name of Timothy Murray suffered the consequences of stealing from the island and rode into the park service begging for them to return. return it. In 1997, he headed to the island to accept a new job, but in the end, it ended up falling

through. With the news of this, he decided to go to Hawaii Volcano's National Park for a fun little getaway, and when he saw the island's black sand beaches, he couldn't resist but to take something home. He scooped up the sand, put it into a little bottle to take home as a souvenir. Very shortly after he returned home, a series of bad events began happening to him. first his pet died very suddenly then his relationship with his fiance who he had been happily with for over five years fell apart and they broke up and shortly after that timothy was contacted by the fbi i they told him that they had been investigating him from the time he was in hawaii and arrested him on copyright infringement the fbi i admitted that this was something that they very rarely arrested people for and that someone must have been very angry at him. He was then found guilty and spent time in a federal penitentiary. Oh my God. A very serious copyright infringement charge there. Wow. And I didn't see more of like exactly what it was, but he certainly, he certainly paid for it. So is it just related to the National Park,

anything taken in regards to Pele and the Curse and all of that? Or is it the islands in general? Yeah, it's anything taken from national parks or, It sounded like it was kind of a little bit more broad, but the volcanoes are in the national park. So it said like rocks and sand and things like that, but the national park has all of that. So I'm assuming it's kind of related to that. Yeah. So Timothy, he's obviously having this really bad luck stealing from the island. And he has finally attributed that this luck, this really bad luck that he's been having all happened after.

he took that black sand, so he decided to write a letter to the park service. And he wrote, Please take this and put it back somewhere on your island. I have had very bad luck since it came into my life, and I am very sorry I took it. Please forgive me, and I pray that once I send it back to where it comes from, my bad luck will go away. He also reported that as soon as he gave the sand back, his luck began to get significantly better. They've also received some letters that are a little bit more lighthearted. and less formal than the one that he sent.

Like one in particular that they received was on a green post-it note and it read, we won the $600,000 lottery. We would have won the $2 million one if it wasn't for this. Please take the rock back before we have more bad luck. I feel like winning $600,000 is good luck. I know. I'm like, how I'm grateful you win $600,000 and you're like, this wasn't good enough.

and it's because I took this rock, take it back. Could have been two mill. Wow. Yeah. I wonder if they were off by like one number and they would have won two million, which is like disheartening, but also you just won $600,000. Like, thank you. Yeah.

I don't consider that. I don't know if I consider that part of this situation. It's not bad luck. Yeah. No. And then they had another letter that they got in the mail that could be interpreted as funny or it could be really sad. It says,

Dear sir, please return the enclosed lava rock to the place where it rightfully belongs on the island of Hawaii. I took this rock when I visit Hawaii in October 1974. A few months later, I met the man who I eventually married. For the past 16 years, this man has made my life miserable. I'm truly sorry for taking the lava rock and I would like for it to be returned to its place of origin. Thank you for your help. That's sad, I think. It's like that's sad or like imagine like things are okay and then she's like just pissed at her husband.

Like he hasn't taken the trash out in weeks. He doesn't make dinner. He's a slob. And then she's just like, it's this rock. Like I married the worst man. And she just like writes this angry letter to the. She's like, this will fix everything. I'm just going to send this in.

Like he's going to improve as soon as they send this in or like it could be like really sad. and be a bad situation. But I read that and I was like, I laughed because I'm like, wow, that was like, you really dislike this man if you're sending this letter in. That's an act of desperation is what that is. It's like every last ditch effort to turn this around, I will do. It's like, here, if this curse is real, this will help get rid of him. Well, you got to check all the boxes.

You can't left, you know, if you're a. in a situation you want to turn it around every if if you truly think that this rock is the source of the unhappiness and the situation you're in now why not send it back yeah yeah i guess and um we'll actually talk about a little bit more at the end of this episode why you shouldn't send it back but i'll get into that later okay because i have another letter that was actually written by someone really close to where we grew up. No. Okay. Yeah. So written from Brookline, New Hampshire, says,

we visit Hawaii in 1995. Since then, we have had eight and a half years of bad luck, including my parents going through two foreclosures on their home, my father being in an accident where he lost his leg, and my husband having cancer, which was the last straw. Please ask Pelle for our forgiveness and bless us with good luck. Now that's bad luck. Not winning $600,000. That is terrible. When was that from? I'm not sure when it was sent in. Well, I guess I can do math. She said in 1995, eight and a half years. So 2005-ish, 2006. She sent it in. Yeah, that's definitely some bad circumstances that she got. And many of these letters are sent directly to the ranger station of the National Park. But there's others that are actually sent in nearby post offices.

And many of these letters are addressed as Madame Pele or Queen Pele. And they will have people who are designated at the post office to search through these letters because it will say to Madam Pele and we'll have the address on and will be packages. Now, while this curse has been widely accepted by people around the world, its validity has been questioned. This legend is not part of tradition in Hawaiian culture and has never been mentioned in their history. The idea of this curse is believed to have originated sometime in the 1940s when tour guides and rangers became tired of people stealing from parks and carrying things into tour buses. It began as a way

to try to get people to stop taking things from the island. And National Park Rangers will say, like, the curse is not real. This isn't real. Stop taking stuff. And at a first glance, this tale heeding all these warnings of angering the goddess might seem hard. but there's many locals to the area that really dislike this legend. They have labeled this belief as cultural appropriation because this myth is not true and also takes the element of culture and fits it into a story that will connect with outsiders. This legend has been labeled in some cases as offensive to their culture and as a result of it, the National Park Service now deals with daily packages and letters, some of which contain items

that aren't actually from the park at all. And Park Rangers have been trying to squash this rumor for a long time now. And a lot of it is they're trying to discourage people from taking things because it's illegal, but they want people to not take it for the right reason. And while I was reading a lot of articles about it and people were like, yeah, people are having bad luck and they're trying to blame it on something. You know, like I lost my job. I have all these misfortunes.

All these things happened. But it just happened. It's not due to this curse. And they were like, this has never been said in Hawaiian culture or the legends of Pelae. She has a huge deeper meaning. And her meaning is she is the spirit, this entity of the island that is about nature and preserving it and respecting it. And it's a huge, she's a huge entity for Hawaiian culture. So instead of not stealing from the island because you're afraid there's going to be a curse, leave the park without. stealing anything because that's the respectful thing to do. And it's respectful to the environment and the Hawaiian culture.

Because if you remember from when I first started this story, these volcanoes of Hawaii National Park is an extremely sacred place because they believe that Pelae lives here and her spirit is here and she is such a huge part of who they are. Instead of learning this myth about all of these things and sending in thousands of letter, which costs them money. They have to pay someone to go through it. They have to get rid of these things. They spend a lot of time reading these letters. And a lot of them are devastating, like the one from New Hampshire that say, you know, my husband has cancer. We had this horrible accident and they're really devastating to read. But it's not related. Yeah. Well, when you were talking about

at first, because I did not know that this was not part of the culture, I just kind of assumed because it has Paley's name in it, that it was part of their culture. So I didn't know that. So at first, when you were talking about how it's kind of like a deterrent for taking things from the park, first thing I thought of was when you were talking about, oh, God, spearfinger in the previous episode, the Haunted Hikes episode, and how it's kind of like a native cautionary tale. So I was thinking like, oh, is this kind of a similar type of thing?

thing, but knowing that it's not and that it's actually discouraged by locals, that, and now it makes more sense of why they would want to separate that from their actual oral history and history of Pele on the island. And it's kind of a shame that, you know, I know about Pele's curse through the Brady Bunch. Like, that says something. Like, I learned about it through outsiders, not anybody. from the island, I'm sure people, locals on the islands of Hawaii cringe at that because it's obviously not accurate. But I'm now happy to know, you know, I learned something. Exactly. And that's

why I phrased it the way that I did without starting it into that this isn't real because it is fed to people like this is real. And there's been a lot of articles that are like, stop believing, this curse, you're really making the park rangers go insane. Like it's not real stop. This is wild. And then people like the Brady Bunch pick it up. And then it gets put out there even more and more and more. And really it's actually, one, you're doing harm because you're taking things when you shouldn't be. And two, you're adding all this extra work and money and time into something that doesn't need to be there. Like don't take things. And I just thought it was really interesting. to learn it because I thought it's funny that you brought up your finger because I thought the same

thing. I'm like, this is going to be like just a myth that people say to try and scare off tourists, but, and it is, but it's not based from the Hawaiian culture or the legend of Pele and the mythology behind her. It's interesting that if it's true that the National Park Service did concoct this, it's kind of biting them in the ass now. And when I was reading it, it said, the National Park Service in one and then in another article it just said tourism of the island. So I don't know specifically if it started with the National Park Service or if it started within like other tours and things like that. But it definitely got around and it has stuck around for a long time and is clearly making a huge impact because they're getting over 100 letters a month that are saying

this that people have to go through. And one of the things that I was reading about this was that they wanted to encourage visitors to learn the real story because people go into the visitor centers and they're like, tell me about the curse. Like, what have you heard? I want to read the letters. I want to know stuff. And they're like, actually, the Hawaiian culture is really important and there's so much that's going on here. Take time to learn about that because it's real. And there's a lot of respect that needs to go into being here and visiting. And to learn that is what's important. Yeah, learn what's actually historically accurate as far as origins of the story and how it's carried on throughout people's beliefs today versus something that someone made up somewhere along the line in the 40s because they were sick of people taking crap from the... Oh, my God. Can you hear that?

Yeah. That's Choska dreaming. Really? Oh, my God, that's the cutest noise. Is he in the room with you? Yeah, he's at my feet. He sounds like he's fighting or playing. Oh my God.

If that is in the recording, please keep it. Because that's the cutest. Okay, anyways. That's horrible. I lost what I was saying. But, yeah. Just learning about the Hawaiian culture and knowing the story of Pele, she comes from a spot of respecting the island.

and they do believe that she is behind the volcanic activity there and that she is preserving the island and where she destroys things and she grows new life there. And a big part of it was if you're not being respectful to the environment, if you're overusing it, if you are destroying an area, she'll destroy it for you and she'll go in and she'll put all these new nutrients there and she'll put a spot for something else to be there instead. So it is like a big thing and there's a lot of other stories. that encompass her. And I read they have over like 400,000 characters in their mythology that you can learn about. So there's a ton of, ton of history there. So this is very, very briefly

touching the surface of it. But I just thought it was really interesting because when I went into researching this, I had no idea that it wasn't real either because all of the headlines are like, look at these letters, look at this, da-da-da-da-da-da. And makes it seem real. And then when you really, really do a dive into it. It's like, oh, this isn't real. This is actually causing issues. So it was really interesting to learn about. And I think the biggest takeaway is be respectful of the places that you're visiting. That's right. Well, thanks again, Cassie, for sharing that and bringing us back to Hawaii for our third visit. We hope everyone has a fantastic week and we will see you back here on Monday. But in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back.

Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content.

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