ell into the oven in which the pig had been baked. The
people could only laugh loudly, if not heartily, as if pleased by
the joke.

In Hana-teio a man in a cocoanut-tree gathering nuts was ordered to
come down by Great Night Moth who was passing on a boar hunt. The
man became confused. His limbs did not cling to the tree as usual.
He was fearful and could make no motion.

"_Poponohoo! Ve mai! A haa tata!_ Come down quickly!" yelled the
chief.

The poor wretch could not obey. He saw the gun and knew the chief.
Great Night Moth brought him down a corpse.

There was no punishment for him. The French held him accountable
only for deeds against their sovereignty. A superstition that he was
protected by the gods, combined with his strength and desperate
courage, made him immune from vengeance by the islanders.

These were incidents Le Brunnec knew from witnesses, but it was Many
Pieces of Tattooing who told the ancestry of Great Night Moth.

"Pohue-toa (Male Package) uncle of Earth Worm, was prince of Taaoa
and father of this man," said Many Pieces. "He was one of the
biggest men of these islands, and the strongest in Taaoa. He lived
for a while in Hana-menu.

"There was no war then between the valley of Atuona and that of
Hana-menu; the people of both crossed the mountains and visited one
another. But it was discovered in Atuona that a number of the people
were missing. Some had gone to Hana-menu and never reached there,
others had disappeared on their way home. The chief of Atuona sent a
messenger who was _tapu_ in all valleys, to count the people of this
valley who were in Hana-menu and to warn them to return in a band,
armed with spears. Meanwhile the priest went to the High Place and
spoke to the gods, and after two days and nights he returned and
said that the danger was at the pass between the valleys; that a
demon had seized the people there.

"The demon was Male Package. You know the precipice there is near
the sky, and at the very height is a _puta faiti_, a narrow place.
There Male Package lay in wait, armed with his spear and club, and
hidden in the grass. He was hungry for meat, for Long Pig, and when
he saw some one he fancied, he threw his spear or struck them down
with the _u'u_. He took the corpse on his back and carried it to his
hut in the upper valley of Hana-menu as I would carry a sack of copra.
There he ate what he would, alone.

"Oh, there were those who knew, but they were afraid to tell.