great trouble.

According to some legends the jealous wives of the great chief,
Tini-rau, attack Hina, who was known among them as Hina-te-ngaru-moana,
"Hina, the daughter of the ocean." Tini-rau and Hina lived away from the
village of the chief until their little boy was born. When they needed
food, the chief said, "Let us go to my settlement and we shall have food
provided."

But Hina chanted:

"Let it down, let it down,
Descend, oh! descend--"

and sufficient food fell before them. After a time their frail clothing
wore out, and the cold chilled them, then Hina again uttered the
incantation and clothing was provided for their need.

But the jealous wives, two in number, finally heard where Hina and the
chief were living, and started to see them.

Tini-rau said to Hina, "Here come my other wives--be careful how you act
before them."

She replied, "If they come in anger it will be evil."

She armed herself with an obsidian or volcanic-glass knife, and waited
their coming.

They tried to throw enchantments around her to kill her. Then one of
them made a blow at her with a weapon, but she turned it aside and
killed her enemy with the obsidian knife.

Then the other wife made an attack, and again the obsidian knife brought
death. She ripped open the stomachs of the jealous ones and showed the
chief fish lines and sinkers and other property which they had eaten in
the past and which Tini-rau had never been able to trace.

Another legend says that the two women came to kill Hina when they heard
of the birth of her boy. For a time she was greatly terrified. Then she
saw that they were coming from different directions. She attacked the
nearest one with a stone and killed her. The body burst open, and was
seen to be full of green stone. Then she killed the second wife in the
same way, and found more green stones. "Thus, according to the legends,
originated the greenstone" from which the choicest and most valuable
stone tools have since been made. For a time the chief and Hina lived
happily together. Then he began to neglect her and abuse her, until she
cried aloud for her brother--

"O Rupe! come down.
Take me and my child."

Rupe assumed the form of a bird and flew down to this world in which he
had found his sister. He chanted as he came down--

"It is Rupe, yes Rupe,
The elder brother;
And I am here."

He folded the mother and her boy under his wings and flew away with
them. Sir George