The Last Volcano

by John Dvorak

  He had recently addressed a crowd of tourists. When asked what was the likelihood that an eruption would happen soon, he purportedly answered, “Pele might return tomorrow, perhaps, next week, or maybe next month.” Later, when asked about his comment, he said that his statement had been “overly stressed” by a newspaper reporter in Honolulu. In fact, he declared, there was no positive means to predict when volcanic activity might resume. “Lava may return to Halemaumau quietly and without warning.” And it may be preceded or followed by an eruption of Mauna Loa.

  But the stories persisted. On April 7, 1926, a report on the front page of the Hilo newspaper said, “Hawaiians believe that something unusual is about to happen.” That afternoon it did.

  Hope Carlsmith and her husband, Leonard, had arrived in Hilo a few days earlier to visit his parents. On the afternoon of April 7, the four of them took a trip to Hilo Bay to swim at the local yacht club. The four of them were floating on a raft when Hope said that she was going to swim to shore and back. She dived into the water and was about twenty-five yards from shore when a shark attacked her.‡

  Her husband saw the attack. He saw a swirl around his wife, then the fins of the shark. He saw the shark grab hold of his wife and pull her under. Fortunately, the shark let loose of her. Her husband dived into the water.

  He swam to his wife and pulled her to shore. There he could see that the shark had lacerated her right leg from the heel to the thigh. The calf of her other leg was torn nearly to shreds.

  Hope was losing a great deal of blood. Someone on the beach had a necktie, and Leonard used it as a tourniquet, tying it to her upper right leg. A doctor said later that this had saved her life.

  Three days later, while lying quietly in a hospital room, Hope was disturbed when her husband and in-laws rushed in. They had come to comfort her. They said that Mauna Loa had started to erupt and that some people in Hilo were saying that her shark attack was the event that not only foretold of an eruption, but that the coming eruption would be a destructive one.

  Then, before leaving, her husband rearranged her room, moving a large mirror so that Hope could see the reflection of the red glow of the sky from her hospital bed.

  Unlike at most volcanic sites in the world, on the island of Hawaii, the reaction was one of celebration. The flow of lava into the sea in 1919 had brought hundreds of tourists to the island. This eruption, which had its source at the same place on the volcano as the previous two, might prove to be an even bigger bonanza.

  On the second day of the eruption, a full page of advertisements appeared under the headline banner: WELCOME HOME TO MADAME PELE. And beneath that was written: More Lava, More Tourists—More Tourists, Better Times.

  The advertisements were introduced by a quote from Jaggar who had said “that he expected this flow would be greater than that of the 1919 flow.” One advertisement reminded volcano watchers to buy flashlights, flashlight batteries, photographic film and cameras. Another one claimed “Fuller’s paints are just as bright as the volcano’s fire and flow.”

  By the third day, the celebration was still going strong. A front-page headline proclaimed: The Volcano is Erupting in Earnest Now—It is a Time of Rejoicing All Over the Isle.” That night, 843 guests registered at the Volcano House, the second largest ever. The hotel had beds for 200.

  On the first day of the eruption the Interisland Steamship Navigation Company announced that it would be sending a ship daily from Honolulu to the island of Hawaii for those who wanted to watch lava flow down the mountain and toward the sea. On the second day, the United States Navy sent two seaplanes to take aerial photographs of the advancing lava flows. On the third day, the United States Army Air Service sent three planes to repeat the photography.

  And on the fifth day a report came to the observatory that an advancing lava flow was about to cross the road. This flow, according to the aerial photographers, was coursing its way between the now long-congealed 1916 and 1919 lava flows and was headed to the sea.

  Thomas and Isabel Jaggar left immediately for the west side of the island. They arrived at half past ten the morning of April 16. The active lava flow had not yet crossed the road. A crowd of people had already gathered to watch the event.

  One of those who came to watch later described the mad dash to see the flowing lava as akin to a rush toward a new gold field. Hundreds of cars seemed to pour down the roads from elsewhere on the island and into south Kona, causing the biggest traffic jam the island had yet seen. Many cars ended up stalled by punctured tires or overheated engines, their occupants picked up by others who were racing to the lava flow.

  When the Jaggars arrived, the flow was still on the uphill side of the road. Smoke of the burning forest was just visible from the road. A short trek showed that the front of the flow was about a thousand feet wide and as much as thirty feet high. It was creeping its way through a dense tangle of guava and lantana bushes.

  About noon the front of the flow surged. It could be heard breaking through bushes and crashing trees to the ground. It was soon “seen coming on like a great fiery dragon of red hot stones, pushing forward several feet a minute with a continual tumble of black fragments at its front.”

  A few individuals rushed forward to have their photographs taken in front of it, standing motionless only a few seconds as waves of intense heat and noxious vapor swept over them. As the front neared the centerline of the highway, people from opposites sides ran out to shake hands and to wave a final goodbye. A few ran up to red-glowing blocks that had tumbled down from the flow to burn paper or singe a hat or a wooden walking stick.

  Both the home of local fisherman George Ka’ana’ana and the Catholic Church stood within a few hundred yards of the advancing flow. Mrs. Ka’ana’ana set red handkerchiefs at the corner of her property, then walked close to the flow front where she placed offerings of sugar cane and sweet potatoes with the vines still attached. The Catholic priest, Father Eugene, and several friends of the Ka’ana’ana family urged them to save what they could from their house and tried to convince them that the offerings would not halt the lava flow. But George Ka’ana’ana refused, saying that as long as no one touched him or his possessions, Pele would not harm him. His wife then came out with a set of white teacups and offered a drink of water to anyone from the family’s water tank.

  But the temptation was too great. Father Eugene and a few others rushed into the Ka’ana’ana house and dragged out what they could, filling a waiting truck with furniture and other items. Soon after, the Catholic Church, which stood nearby, was touched by lava and burst into flames. Mr. and Mrs. Ka’ana’ana were sitting inside their house when a small lobe of molten lava reached out from the main flow and caused their house to go up in flames. The Ka’ana’anas quietly left.

  After the Catholic Church and the Ka’ana’ana house burned and the smoldering ruins were toppled and covered by the advancing lava, the flow seemed to slow. Some onlookers thought it had stopped. It was still three miles to the ocean, all of it down a steep slope covered by a dense forest. And at the bottom was the fishing village of Ho’opuloa.

  The Jaggars slept that night at the single store in Ho’opuloa where, just before their arrival, the owner had removed his stock of goods and furniture, then swept the building, leaving the floor spotless and clean.

  Much of the night was a quiet one. A red glow, of course, could be seen high above them on the steep slope. But whether the flow was still advancing was unknown until three o’clock when Thomas Jaggar looked up and saw the first faint red glows of the lava flow starting to pour over the top of the bluff back of Ho’opuloa.

  By sunrise, the flow was well down and coming straight for the village. More than a hundred people were now at Ho’opuloa, most of them having slept in their cars during the night. As the sun rose, many joined in a prayer service.

  Jaggar went through the crowd warning people to stay away from the shoreline as the hot lava would explode when it came into contact with cold seawater and that t
hose same explosions might produce large sea waves. He also asked that everyone keep a sharp lookout for any strange fish that might be brought to the ocean surface after the lava entered the water. Anyone who found one was asked to preserve it immediately.

  Jaggar also went through the village warning people that this was their last chance to save possessions. That evening, trucks arrived with men who had been sent by the county government to assist, if asked, in removing lumber or other reusable material from buildings. Only three families asked that their houses be disassembled. The other dozen or so families refused the aid.

  That evening the steamer Haleakala of the Interisland Steamship Navigation Company arrived and stationed itself a mile offshore. Its three hundred passengers gathered aft to watch the spectacle that was happening on shore. Many reclined in steamer chairs and were served drinks, while others sat on benches or atop beams or wherever they could find a place to sit. Even from the shore, the ship’s orchestra could be heard playing Hawaiian music.

  From the ship’s deck, passengers could see the entire length of the lava flow as it coursed its way down the mountain. One passenger would describe the reflection off the calm sea as “a flaming ocean such as has never before been photographed.”

  Just before midnight, passengers could see a bright flare shoot up from a spot high on Mauna Loa. It was bright enough to illuminate the area for many miles. Immediately after, again as one of the passengers would describe it, a surge of lava broke “forth from near the source of activity high up in the mountain and [went] rolling and tumbling down the side, a great seething river of fire, carrying everything in its wake and completely covering all traces of the former flow except along a line near the sea.”

  Everyone on board was tense with excitement and was certain that the surge would surely send lava into the sea. But it stopped just short, though every few minutes a new line of lava near the coast brightened suddenly, causing the passengers and the ship’s crew to shout with excitement.

  Those who were at Ho’opuloa also saw the surge just before midnight, though they had no idea what was happening elsewhere. To them, it “resembled a great ball of fire tumbling down.” And, with that, everyone left Ho’opuloa, including the Jaggars, who retreated south along the coastline.

  At four o’clock the first house in Ho’opuloa caught fire. At six thirty, the store where the Jaggars had stayed and slept the night before began to burn, the moving lava pushing it sideways as the building burned.

  Minutes later, the first red incandescent boulder rolled off the flow front and fell into the sea. The Jaggars stood nearby and watched as the flow itself entered the water, causing “clouds of steam peppered with black sand” to shoot up. Within an hour, Ho’opuloa was covered by lava. Army airplanes flew overhead the entire day photographing the flow of lava into the sea.

  That night, the flow of lava toward Ho’opuloa stopped and a new lava flow started to pour down the east side of the island. But this one was short-lived. Within a few days, the lava stopped moving. And the 1926 eruption of Mauna Loa was over.

  One of the passengers on the Haleakala described what he had seen as “a big performance.” One of the pilots who flew over Ho’opuloa on its last day of existence said he was “struck by the spectacular beauty spread out before him.”

  A reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser who filed several stories about the eruption—and who was sympathetic to the Hawaiians who had lost their homes and who believed in Pele—ended his last story by concluding the eruption had been “a vivid lesson in geology but a greater lesson in religion.”

  Later, some Hawaiians would say that Ho’opuloa would have been saved from the lava flow if strangers had not intervened.

  *To clarify what is meant by “largest” volcano: Mauna Loa is the most massive volcano that still erupts. The undersea volcano Tamu Massif in the northwestern Pacific Ocean has the most mass of any volcano, though its summit is over 6,500 feet below sea level and it has not erupted for nearly 150 million years.

  †This is the same Dr. Judd who removed the brain tumor from Isabel’s first husband, Guy Maydwell.

  ‡Shark attacks are rare in the Hawaiian Islands. This was the second known shark attack in Hilo Bay and only the fifth known shark attack anywhere in the Hawaiian Islands.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE GODDESS

  Mauna Loa began to erupt on November 5, 1880, sending a broad stream of lava down toward Hilo and its bay. By March the flow front was within seven miles of the bay. By early June, it was within five miles. Crowds of people now made the short trip to see the advancing lava. One person who spent a night camped close to the edge of the slowly moving lava wrote, “The sight was grand. The whole frontage was one mass of liquid lava carrying on its surface huge cakes of partially cooled lava.” The lava continued to advance. By the third week of June, the lightheartedness ended.

  On June 26 the flow entered a narrow stream channel that caused it to surge forward and pick up speed. After another week, the front had advanced nearly a mile. People were now concerned that the town of Hilo would soon be lost.

  Frederick Lyman, one of Hilo’s leading citizens and the representative of the Royal Governor of the island of Hawaii—the governor resided in Honolulu—proclaimed July 6, a Wednesday, to be a day devoted to prayer. All businesses were closed. During the morning, local ministers led church services, asking God to halt the advancing lava. That afternoon, the ministers and Lyman took the short walk to see the lava. During the few minutes they stood there, the flow front advanced twenty feet.

  By July 18 the fate of Hilo seemed to be sealed. Lava was now within a mile of the nearest building and less than two miles from the shoreline. People expected their houses and stores to soon be covered by lava. The same day several local Hawaiians sailed for Honolulu where they sought a meeting with Ruth Ke’elikolani, a sister of King David Kalakaua who was then on a world tour and who had left Ke’elikolani in charge of the government. The visitors asked Ke’elikolani if she would come to Hilo and see for herself the disaster that was about to befall their town. She agreed to go, but she did not travel straight to Hilo.

  Instead, she chartered a steamer that transported herself and a small retinue of advisers to Kailua on the west side of Hawaii. From there, she and her advisers took five days to travel by wagon and on horseback to Hilo, arriving on August 4.

  On the day they arrived, the people of Hilo were holding a meeting to discuss what might be done to save the town. Plans were made to construct earth embankments around important buildings and a stone wall around a local sugar mill to divert the lava. It was also proposed to use dynamite to disrupt the flow near the eruption site, though nothing came of this suggestion. Ke’elikolani did not attend the meeting. When she arrived in Hilo, she took up residence in the house of a close friend where she remained for five days.

  On the morning of August 9, she sent for one of her advisers. She told him to purchase all the white silk scarves that could be found in Hilo. She also asked that a bottle of brandy be purchased to substitute for awa, a drink common throughout Polynesia, including the Hawaiian Islands, and which had a mild sedative quality. After the scarves and the brandy were brought to her, she asked for a wagon to carry her to the flow front, but, because of her great weight—she weighed over four hundred pounds—the wagon broke and a sturdier one was found.

  At the flow front, Ke’elikolani walked alone, all onlookers, both Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian, keeping a respectful distance. She was seen sprinkling drops of brandy and placing scarves on the red lava. Some people thought she spoke a few words. Then, as one of the onlooker recorded, she left the lava flow and Hilo “with confidence and returned to Honolulu.”

  The next morning when the people of Hilo looked up at Mauna Loa they saw that the eruption had ended. “A remarkable coincidence,” explained the whites. “The work of Pele,” whispered the Hawaiians, even though the last temples dedicated to the goddess had been destroyed sixty years earlier.
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  Pele is an akua malihini, a foreign goddess. She arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in about the 14th century, hundreds of years after the first humans arrived. According to an ancient chant, she came from Kahiki, probably Tahiti, “from the land of Pola-pola,” which might be the island of Bora-bora.

  When she arrived on the island of Hawaii, according to another chant, she was told that a god, Aila’au, already inhabited the volcano of Kilauea. Wishing to meet him, she started up the mountain. But, when Aila’au learned that she was approaching, he left. Ever since, Pele and her family, which included many members who represent other elemental forces, such as earthquakes and storms, have resided on the island.

  Her importance and wide veneration is indicated today by her association with more than a hundred place names found on all the major islands and on the small leeward ones. Many of these places are of obvious volcanic origin. For example, Koko Crater on the southeastern shore of Oahu—a cone of volcanic ash that formed in prehistory when lava erupted through shallow seawater—is similar in form to female genitals, which explains why the ancient name of the crater is Kohele-pele-pe, Pele’s vagina.

  One of the early compilers of Pele stories was Abraham Fornander, who came to the islands in 1841 on a whaling ship, then deserted. He rose to prominence in island society, first as a newspaperman, then as a judge. Fornander became interested in ancient stories because he thought they might contain evidence that Hawaiians were a lost Aryan tribe, a theory then popular among some westerners. No such connection exists. The stories he recorded contain some of the most vivid depictions of volcanic activity in Hawaiian lore.