Lohiʻau

In the Pele–Hiʻiaka cycle, Lohiʻau appears as the mortal beloved whose presence and fate motivate divine action. In accounts cited (including Emerson's retelling of the Pele and Hiʻiaka myth), Pele desires Lohiʻau so strongly that she sends her sister Hiʻiaka to fetch him and bring him to Kīlauea. Versions of the cycle vary in emphasis—some present Lohiʻau primarily as Hiʻiaka's beloved whom she must retrieve, while other tellings stress Pele's longing and commissioning of Hiʻiaka—so his role is consistently that of the human figure whose retrieval sets the quest in motion.

The provided sources do not give a consistent or detailed physical description of Lohiʻau. In the cited fragments he is referenced as a beloved or paramour without sustained descriptive detail; some fuller tellings of the Pele–Hiʻiaka cycle (beyond the supplied excerpts) at times portray him in human social terms, but the materials here supply no reliable, consistent account of his appearance.

The sources examined do not ascribe supernatural powers to Lohiʻau. He is treated as a mortal whose narrative function is to motivate divine characters—Pele and Hiʻiaka—and their actions. Narrative episodes connected to him in wider tellings of the cycle (summarized in the cited Project Gutenberg introduction) include being the person Hiʻiaka is sent to retrieve and, in some versions of the broader tradition (not detailed in the supplied excerpts), experiencing death or near-death and revival; however, within the provided materials he has no documented supernatural abilities.