How Ma-ui overcame Kuna Loa the Long Eel.
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 [[33]]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 [[34]]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 [[35]]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.