Maui, the eldest son of the goddess Hina, lived with his mother and
two brothers in the cave behind Rainbow Falls, in the Wailuku River
Gorge, a short distance mauka of what is today the town of Hilo. Often
the brothers would go fishing in the harbor.
At this time the Hawaiians knew nothing about fire. All their food was
eaten raw. Occasionally Maui had found in his various wanderings some
bits of cooked banana and pondered over their delicious flavor. He
could not understand what had been done to them until one day he came
upon a group of little alae birds cooking bananas over a fire.
He was so amazed at the scene that the birds had plenty of time to put
out their fire and take wing before he could bring himself to action.
This only aroused his ambitious nature and he vowed he would learn the
secret of fire.
In the days that followed he devised many cunning schemes to trap one
of the alae birds, but they, too, were cunning and carefully refrained
from building any fire when Maui was near. Once or twice while he was
out fishing he had seen white puffs of smoke among the trees and knew
the birds were preparing a feast, but he could never reach the place
in time to catch any of them.
One day he thought of a clever trick and took his brothers into his
confidence. They fixed up a kalabash covered with tapa to resemble a
man and placed it in the middle of Maui's canoe. Then the two brothers
took their seats at either end of the canoe and paddled out into the
harbor while Maui ran back and concealed himself in the woods.
Soon the alae birds came circling overhead and Maui heard them say,
"At last we can make our fire and have a good feast. Maui and his two
brothers are out for a day's fishing."
Quivering with excitement, Maui crouched in his hiding-place and
waited. Soon he heard the birds talking quite near him and, peeping
out, saw them pushing fresh bananas into a blazing fire. Rushing into
their midst he caught one of the birds.
"Tell me how you make fire or you shall never go free!" he demanded.
At first the bird was sullen and refused to answer, but at Maui's
rough treatment resorted to trickery and replied, "Rub two taro stalks
together and you shall have fire."
Holding the bird closely, Maui did so, but only little drops of water
came from the stalks. Very angry, Maui punished the bird again and
demanded the truth. Helpless and exhausted, the poor alae told Maui to
take two hau sticks and rub them together.
Maui found the hau sticks, but fearing the bird was not telling the
truth, he rubbed its head with one of the sticks until a drop of blood
trickled out, staining the tuft of feathers on its crest. But the bird
persisted in this statement, so Maui began rubbing the sticks
together. Little sparks appeared and caught fire to the dead leaves on
which they fell.
Overjoyed at his discovery, Maui set the bird free. But to this day
every alae bird wears the symbol of punishment for telling its
secret--a tuft of red feathers on the top of its head.