r final location with the
families who brought them. There are three Hawaiian Hinas practically
distinct from each other, although a supernatural element is connected
with each one. Hina who was stolen from Hawaii by a chief of the Island
of Molokai was an historical character, although surrounded by mythical
stories. Another Hina, who was the wife of Kuula, the fish god, was
pre-eminently a local deity, having no real connection with the legends
of the other islands of the Pacific, although sometimes the stories told
concerning her have not been kept entirely distinct from the legends of
the Hina of Hilo.

The Hilo Hina was the true legendary character closely connected with
all Polynesia. The stories about her are of value not simply as legends,
but as traditions closely uniting the Hawaiian Islands with the island
groups thousands of miles distant. The Wailuku river, which flows
through the town of Hilo, has its own peculiar and weird beauty. For
miles it is a series of waterfalls and rapids. It follows the course of
an ancient lava flow, sometimes forcing its way under bridges of lava,
thus forming what are called boiling pots, and sometimes pouring in
massive sheets over the edges of precipices which never disintegrate.
By the side of this river Hina's son Maui had his lands. In the very bed
of the river, in a cave under one of the largest falls, Hina made her
own home, concealed from the world by the silver veil of falling water
and lulled to sleep by the continual roar of the flood falling into the
deep pool below. By the side of this river, the legends say, she pounded
her tapa and prepared her food. Here were the small, graceful mamake and
the coarser wauke trees, from which the bark was stripped with which she
made tapa cloth. Branches were cut or broken from these and other trees
whose bark was fit for the purpose. These branches were well soaked
until the bark was removed easily. Then the outer bark was scraped off,
leaving only the pliable inner bark. The days were very short and there
was no time for rest while making tapa cloth. Therefore, as soon as the
morning light reddened the clouds, Hina would take her calabash filled
with water to pour upon the bark, and her little bundle of round clubs
(the hohoa) and her four-sided mallets (the i-e-kuku) and hasten to the
sacred spot where, with chants and incantations, the tapa was made.

The bark was well soaked in the water all the days of the process of
tapa