House of the fern
Hale is a house and ʻāmaʻu is a native tree fern. The name is read as the house of the ʻāmaʻu, and one account explains it by the ferns that grow around the rim.
It is understood as Pele's residence. Offerings are left at the rim, and the protocols around approaching it are taken seriously by many visitors and residents.
A lake of lava
For most of the nineteenth century Halemaʻumaʻu held an open lava lake, which drew travellers from around the world — Mark Twain among them — and made Kīlauea one of the earliest tourist destinations in the Pacific. The lake drained in 1924, returned in 2008, and drained again in the 2018 collapse.