Hawaiian legend says that anyone who removes a piece of volcanic rock from the Hawaiian Islands will incur the wrath of Pele. The Hawaiian volcano god, Pele, is a jealous god, and is very protective of her children. Being a volcanic god, her kids are the rocks that come from molten magma cooling off, and she wants them to stick around.

Taking a small volcanic rock home may not seem like much of a big deal—until the curse settles in. Many vistiors returning rocks report all manner of bad luck striking them; the death of family pets, the loss of a job, a sudden illness- all of it and more are linked back to a belief that the act of taking a rock from Hawaii is bad mojo. This is the legend behind the superstition, and the reason why people who believe it are willing to send rocks back to the Islands, at times personally returning the stolen rocks as an act of redemption.

Is it true? Some say that this legend is a result of modern Hawaiian park rangers; those stalwart protectors of nature, who grew tired of seeing visitors making off with the local landscape. Sure, a small rock or a bottle of sand from a beach is no big deal…unless of course a million people, annually, walk off with the same souvenir!

The “thievery” has gained such notoriety that a website has popped up offering a return service for those unwilling to return to the islands in order to return their ill-gotten booty. Volcano Gallery.com offers a unique service in actually returning lava rock to their proper destination, as opposed to the toss it out the back window approach most hotels in Waikiki and Maui have adopted when dealing with hundreds of packages containing lava rock received each year. The website promotes their approach in this manner:

“Once we receive the returned lava rocks we will carefully wrap them in a leaf of the Ti-Plant, which is commonly associated with Good Luck. Your lava rock(s) will be returned at a special location in Volcano close to the home of Pele, the Hawaiian Fire Goddess and Creator of Lava. The lava rocks will be returned to Pele along with an offering of orchids to ask for her forgiveness … for a voluntary donation of $15.00″

Whether or not you believe in the legend is not the point … the belief that anything natively Hawaiian, such as sand, rock, or pumice, will effect bad luck on whoever takes it away from Hawaii is more about respecting where you are, where you are going, and how you treat everything else in between.

Bonus Pop Culture Reference: In one episode of the 70’s show The Brady Bunch the gang had visited a shrine to Pele and removed a rock (in this case it was a miniature statue). Without even leaving the island they were plagued with bad luck, from a giant spider crawling in their suitcase to a near-death wipe out while surfing, the Brady Bunch had to return the idol in order to lift the curse and return home safely to the Mainland.

[ Original Artwork by Wardell Brown ]