The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.
“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”
But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared [[150]]back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.
That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.
Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.
For the rest of their food they had hau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they called Kea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped [[151]]in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.
But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.
They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.
One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place [[152]]where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.