Pele's Curse is the belief that anything natively Hawaiian, such as

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

, or

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular vol ...

, will bring bad luck on whoever takes it away from

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. One version about the legend's genesis is this: a disgruntled park ranger, angry at the number of rocks that were being taken from the islands by visitors, said that Pele would curse them with bad luck should they take anything. Another version often told is that bus drivers, tired of the dirt and grime brought on their buses by the tourists' collection of rocks, started the story at the beginning of each tour to discourage the rock collecting. The myth has caught on, told as if it were an original Hawaiian

taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

, and every year countless tourists send items back to Hawaii in order to escape the awful luck that Pele has caused them. So, although the legend itself is probably of twentieth-century origin, the removal of rocks as souvenirs is now frowned upon by

ans. Also, it is illegal to remove

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

from within a U.S. national park.{{cite web, author=Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times , url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/05/17/MN135697.DTL , title=Hawaii's hot rocks blamed by tourists for bad luck , publisher=Sfgate.com , date=2001-05-17 , accessdate=2010-10-11

References

External links

Article on snopes.com
Hawaiian mythology Curses Tourism in Hawaii