eath appeared
degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Man ought to die like the
moon, which dips in the life-giving waters of Kane and is renewed again,
or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and with
renewed strength rises in the morning."

Maui sought the home of Hine-nui-te-po--the guardian of life. He heard
her order her attendants to watch for any one approaching and capture
all who came walking upright as a man. He crept past the attendants on
hands and feet, found the place of life, stole some of the food of the
goddess and returned home. He showed the food to his brothers and
persuaded them to go with him into the darkness of the night of death.
On the way he changed them into the form of birds. In the evening they
came to the house of the goddess on the island long before fished up
from the seas.

Maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made the
supreme effort of his life. He was about to enter upon his struggle for
immortality. He said to the birds: "If I go into the stomach of this
woman, do not laugh until I have gone through her, and come out again
at her mouth; then you can laugh at me."

His friends said: "You will be killed." Maui replied: "If you laugh at
me when I have only entered her stomach I shall be killed, but if I have
passed through her and come out of her mouth I shall escape and
Hine-nui-te-po will die."

His friends called out to him: "Go then. The decision is with you."

Hine was sleeping soundly. The flashes of lightning had all ceased. The
sunlight had almost passed away and the house lay in quiet gloom. Maui
came near to the sleeping goddess. Her large, fish-like mouth was open
wide. He put off his clothing and prepared to pass through the ordeal of
going to the hidden source of life, to tear it out of the body of its
guardian and carry it back with him to mankind. He stood in all the
glory of savage manhood. His body was splendidly marked by the
tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and sparkled in the last rays of
the setting sun.

He leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her
stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle
which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. He found
immortality on the other side of death. He turned to come back again
into life when suddenly a little bird (the Pata-tai) laughed in a clear,
shrill tone, and Great Hine, through whose mouth Maui was passing,