awoke. Her sharp, obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon Maui, cutting
his body in the center. Thus Maui entered the gates of death, but was
unable to return, and death has ever since been victor over rebellious
men. The natives have the saying:

"If Maui had not died, he could have restored to life all who had gone
before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death."

Maui's brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave called
Te-ana-i-hana, "The cave dug out," possibly a prepared burial place.

Maui's wife made war upon the spirits, the gods, and killed as many as
she could to avenge her husband's death. One of the old native poets of
New Zealand, in chanting the story to Mr. White, said: "But though Maui
was killed, his offspring survived. Some of these are at Hawa-i-i-ki and
some at Aotea-roa (New Zealand), but the greater part of them remained
at Hawa-i-ki. This history was handed down by the generations of our
ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our
children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters
relating to our race."

"But death is nothing new,
Death is, and has been ever since old Maui died.
Then Pata-tai laughed loud
And woke the goblin-god,
Who severed him in two, and shut him in,
So dusk of eve came on."

--Maori death chant, New Zealand.

XII.

HINA OF HILO.

Hina is not an uncommon name in Hawaiian genealogies. It is usually
accompanied by some adjective which explains or identifies the person to
whom the name is given. In Hawaii the name Hina is feminine. This is
also true throughout all Polynesia except in a few cases where Hina is
reckoned as a man with supernatural attributes. Even in these cases it
is apparent that the legend has been changed from its original form as
it has been carried to small islands by comparatively ignorant people
when moving away from their former homes.

Hina is a Polynesian goddess whose story is very interesting--one worthy
of study when comparing the legends of the island groups of the Pacific.
The Hina of Hilo is the same as the goddess of that name most widely
known throughout Polynesia--and yet her legends are located by the
ancient Hawaiians in Hilo, as if that place were her only home. The
legends are so old that the Hawaiians have forgotten their origin in
other lands. The stories were brought with the immigrants who settled on
the Hilo coast. Thus the stories found thei