Hawaii Park Rangers: Stop Leaving Offerings At Mount Kilauea

[Carol]

HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, Hawaii (AP) - April 21, 2007 - Please don't feed the volcano god.

That's a message rangers at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park are sending as they try to get people to stop leaving religious offerings at the summit of Mount Kilauea.
Visitors leave 45 pounds of offerings each week including flowers, bottles, money, incense, candles and crystals. But food offerings are the biggest problem. A park statement says the decaying matter "attracts rats, flies, ants and cockroaches."

One ranger recently found a whole, cooked piglet with trimmings.

The rotting offerings also pose a hazard to the endangered state bird, the nene goose.

Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando said the park must preserve the summit area, where the lava has sacred significance in Hawaiian culture as the physical representation of the fire goddess Pele.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?secti ... id=5201456