Part 8 (2/2)

He commanded Hina to come down to the river and wait on the bank to attract Tuna-roa. Soon the long eel was seen in the water swimming near to Hina. Hina went to a place back of the logs which Maui had laid down.

Tuna-roa came towards her, and began to slide down the skids.

Maui sprang out from his hiding place and killed Tuna-roa with his axe, and cut him in pieces.

The tail became the conger-eel. Parts of his body became fresh-water eels. Some of the blood fell upon birds and always after marked them with red spots. Some of the blood was thrown into certain trees, making this wood always red. The muscles became vines and creepers.

From this time the children of Maui caught and ate the eels of both salt and fresh water. Eel traps were made, and Maui taught the people the proper chants or incantations to use when catching eels.

This legend of Maui and the long eel was found by White in a number of forms among the different tribes of New Zealand, but does not seem to have had currency in many other island groups.

In Turner's ”Samoa” a legend is related which was probably derived from the Maui stories and yet differs in its romantic results. The Samoans say that among their ancient ones dwelt a woman named Sina. Sina among the Polynesians is the same as Hina--the ”h” is softened into ”s”. She captured a small eel and kept it as a pet. It grew large and strong and finally attacked and bit her. She fled, but the eel followed her everywhere. Her father came to her a.s.sistance and raised high mountains between the eel and herself. But the eel pa.s.sed over the barrier and pursued her. Her mother raised a new series of mountains. But again the eel surmounted the difficulties and attempted to seize Sina. She broke away from him and ran on and on. Finally she wearily pa.s.sed through a village. The people asked her to stay and eat with them, but she said they could only help her by delivering her from the pursuing eel. The inhabitants of that village were afraid of the eel and refused to fight for her. So she ran on to another place. Here the chief offered her a drink of water and promised to kill the eel for her. He prepared awa, a stupefying drink, and put poison in it. When the eel came along the chief asked him to drink. He took the awa and prepared to follow Sina.

When he came to the place where she was the pains of death had already seized him. While dying he begged her to bury his head by her home. This she did, and in time a plant new to the islands sprang up. It became a tree, and finally produced a cocoanut, whose two eyes could continually look into the face of Sina.

Tuna, in the legends of Fiji, was a demon of the sea. He lived in a deep sea cave, into which he sometimes shut himself behind closed doors of coral. When he was hungry, he swam through the ocean shadows, always watching the restless surface. When a canoe pa.s.sed above him, he would throw himself swiftly through the waters, upset the canoe, and seize some of the boatmen and devour them. He was greatly feared by all the fishermen of the Fijian coasts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Coconut Grove in Kona.]

Roko--a mo-o or dragon G.o.d--in his journey among the islands, stopped at a village by the sea and asked for a canoe and boatmen. The people said: ”We have nothing but a very old canoe out there by the water.” He went to it and found it in a very bad condition. He put it in the water, and decided that he could use it. Then he asked two men to go with him and paddle, but they refused because of fear, and explained this fear by telling the story of the water demon, who continually sought the destruction of this canoe, and also their own death. Roko encouraged them to take him to wage battle with Tuna, telling them he would destroy the monster. They paddled until they were directly over Tuna's cave.

Roko told them to go off to one side and wait and watch, saying: ”I am going down to see this Tuna. If you see red blood boil up through the water, you may be sure that Tuna has been killed. If the blood is black, then you will know that he has the victory and I am dead.”

Roko leaped into the water and went down--down to the door of the cave.

The coral doors were closed. He grasped them in his strong hands and tore them open, breaking them in pieces. Inside he found cave after cave of coral, and broke his way through until at last he awoke Tuna. The angry demon cried: ”Who is that?” Roko answered: ”It is I, Roko, alone.

Who are you?”

Tuna aroused himself and demanded Roko's business and who guided him to that place. Roko replied: ”No one has guided me. I go from place to place, thinking that there is no one else in the world.”

Tuna shook himself angrily. ”Do you think I am nothing? This day is your last.”

Roko replied: ”Perhaps so. If the sky falls, I shall die.”

Tuna leaped upon Roko and bit him. Then came the mighty battle of the coral caves. Roko broke Tuna into several pieces--and the red blood poured in boiling bubbles upward through the clear ocean waters, and the boatmen cried: ”The blood is red--the blood is red--Tuna is dead by the hand of Roko.”

Roko lived for a time in Fiji, where his descendants still find their home. The people use this chant to aid them in difficulties:

”My load is a red one.

It points in front to Kawa (Roko's home).

Behind, it points to Dolomo--(a village on another island).”

In the Hawaiian legends, Hina was Maui's mother rather than his wife, and Kuna (Tuna) was a mo-o, a dragon or gigantic lizard possessing miraculous powers.

Hina's home was in the large cave under the beautiful Rainbow Falls near the city of Hilo. Above the falls the bed of the river is along the channel of an ancient lava flow. Sometimes the water pours in a torrent over the rugged lava, sometimes it pa.s.ses through underground pa.s.sages as well as along the black river bed, and sometimes it thrusts itself into boiling pools.

Maui lived on the northern side of the river, but a chief named Kuna-moo--a dragon--lived in the boiling pools. He attacked Hina and threw a dam across the river below Rainbow Falls, intending to drown Hina in her cave. The great ledge of rock filled the river bed high up the bank on the Hilo side of the river. Hina called on Maui for aid.

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