Hina-of-the-Fire lived in a cave that the waters of the river streamed
over, a cave that always had a beautiful rainbow glimmering across it.
While her sons were away no enemy could come to Hina in this cave, for
the walls of it went up straight and smooth. And there at the opening
of the cave she used to sit, beating out her tapa in the long days that
came after Ma-ui had snared the Sun and had made him go more slowly
across the heavens.
In the river below there was one who was an enemy to Hina. This was
Kuna Loa, the Long Eel. Once Kuna Loa had seen Hina on the bank of the
river, and he had wanted her to leave her cave and come to his abode.
But Hina-of-the-Fire would not go near the Long Eel. Then he had gone
to her, and he had lashed her with his tail, covering her with the
slime of the river. She told about the insults he had given her, and
Ma-ui drove the Long Eel up the river, where he took shelter in the
deep pools. Ma-ui broke down the banks of the deep pools with thrusts
of his spear, but Kuna Loa, the Long Eel, was still able to escape from
him. Now Ma-ui had gone away, and his mother, Hina-of-the-Fire, kept
within the cave, the smooth rock of which Kuna Loa could not climb.
The Long Eel came down the river. He saw Hina sitting in the mouth of
the cave that had the rainbow glimmering across it, and he was filled
with rage and a wish to destroy her. He took a great rock and he put it
across the stream, filling it from bank to bank. Then he lashed about
in the water in his delight at the thought of what was going to happen
to Hina.
She heard a deeper sound in the water than she had ever heard before as
she sat there. She looked down and she saw that the water was nearer to
the mouth of the cave than she had ever seen it before. Higher and
higher it came. And then Hina heard the voice of Kuna Loa rejoicing at
the destruction that was coming to her. He raised himself up in the
water and cried out to her: “Now your mighty son cannot help you. I
will drown you with the waters of the river before he comes back to
you, Hina.”
And Hina-of-the-Fire cried “Alas, Alas,” as she watched the waters
mount up and up, for she knew that Ma-ui and her other sons were far
away, and that there was none to help her against Kuna Loa, the Long
Eel. But, even as she lamented, something was happening to aid Hina.
For Ma-ui had placed above her cave a cloud that served her—“Ao-opua,”
“The Warning Cloud.” Over the cave it rose now, giving itself a strange
shape: Ma-ui would see it and be sure to know by its sign that
something dire was happening in his mother’s cave.
He was then on the mountain Ha-le-a-ka-la, the House of the Sun. He saw
the strangely shaped cloud hanging over her cave, and he knew that some
danger threatened his mother, Hina-of-the-Fire. He dashed down the side
of the mountain, bringing with him the magic axe that his grandmother
had given him for his battle with the Sun. He sprang into his canoe.
With two strokes of his paddle he crossed the channel and was at the
mouth of the Wai-lu-ku River. The bed of the river was empty of water,
and Ma-ui left his canoe on the stones and went up towards Hina’s cave.
The water had mounted up and up and had gone into the cave, and was
spilling over Hina’s tapa-board. She was lamenting, and her heart was
broken with the thought that neither Ma-ui nor his brothers would come
until the river had drowned her in her cave.
Ma-ui was then coming up the bed of the river. He saw the great stone
across the stream, and he heard Kuna Loa rejoicing over the destruction
that was coming to Hina in her cave. With one stroke of his axe he
broke the rock across. The water came through the break. He struck the
rocks and smashed them. The river flowed down once more, and Hina was
safe in her cave.
Kuna Loa heard the crash of the axe on the rock, and he knew that Ma-ui
had come. He dashed up the stream to hide himself again in the deep
pools. Ma-ui showed his mother that she was safe, and then he went
following the Long Eel.
Kuna Loa had gone into a deep pool. Ma-ui flung burning stones into the
water of that pool, making it boil up. Then Kuna Loa dashed into
another pool. From pool to pool Ma-ui chased him, making the pools boil
around him. (And there they boil to this day, although Kuna Loa is no
longer there.) At last the Eel found a cave in the bottom of one of the
pools, and he went and hid in it, and Ma-ui could not find him there,
nor could the hot stones that Ma-ui threw into the water, making it
boil, drive Kuna Loa out.
Hina thought she was safe from the Long Eel after that. She thought
that his skin was so scalded by the boiling water that he had died in
his cave. Down the river bank for water she would go, and sometimes she
would stand on the bank all wreathed in flowers.
But one day, as she was standing on the bank of the river, Kuna Loa
suddenly came up. Hina fled before him. The Eel was between her and her
cave, and she could not get back to her shelter. She fled through the
woods. And as she fled she shrieked out chants to Ma-ui: her chants
went through the woods, and along the side of the mountain, and across
the sea; they came at last up the side of Ha-le-a-ka-la, where her son
Ma-ui was.
There were many people in the places that Hina fled through, but they
could do nothing to help her against the Long Eel. He came swiftly
after her. The people in the villages that they went through stood and
watched the woman and the Eel that pursued her.
Where would she go now? The Long Eel was close behind her. Then Hina
saw a bread-fruit tree with great branches, and she climbed into it.
Kuna Loa wound himself around the tree and came after her. But the
branch that Hina was in was lifted up and up by the tree, and the Long
Eel could not come to her.
And then Ma-ui came. He had dashed down the side of the mountain and
had crossed the channel with two strokes of his paddles and had hurried
along the track made by the Long Eel. Now he saw his mother in the
branch that kept mounting up, and he saw Kuna Loa winding himself up
after her. Ma-ui went into the tree. He struck the Eel a terrible blow
and brought him to the ground. Then he sprang down and cut his head
off. With other blows of his axe he cut the Eel all to pieces. He flung
the head and the tail of Kuna Loa into the sea. The head turned into
fish of many kinds, and the tail became the large conger eel of the
sea. Other parts of the body turned into sea monsters of different
kinds. And the blood of Kuna Loa, as it fell into the fresh water,
became the common eels. The fresh and the salt water eels came into the
world in this way, and Ma-ui, by killing the Long Eel, wrought the
sixth of his great deeds.