lava oven, but this time the
spirit escaped and found a safe refuge among kukui trees on the mountain
side, from which she sometimes rises in clouds which the natives say are
the sure sign of rain.

Whether this Maui legend has any real connection with the two Hinas and
the famine we do not surely know. The legend ordinarily told among the
Hawaiians says that after five days had passed the retainers decided on
their own responsibility to open the imu. No woman had appeared to give
them directions. Nothing but a mysterious rain cloud over the hill. In
doubt and fear, the dirt was thrown off and the mats removed. Nothing
was found but the ashes of Hina Kuluua. There was no food for her
followers and the goddess had lost all power of appearing as a chiefess.
Her bitter and thoughtless jealousy brought destruction upon herself and
her people. The ghosts of Hina Ke Ahi and Hina Kuluua sometimes draw
near to the old hills in the form of the fire of flowing lava or clouds
of rain while the old men and women tell the story of the Hinas, the
sisters of Maui, who were laid upon the burning stones of the imus of a
famine.

XV.

HINA, THE WOMAN IN THE MOON.

The Wailuku river has by its banks far up the mountain side some of the
most ancient of the various interesting picture rocks of the Hawaiian
Islands. The origin of the Hawaiian picture writing is a problem still
unsolved, but the picture rocks of the Wailuku river are called "na kii
o Maui," "the Maui pictures." Their antiquity is beyond question.

The most prominent figure cut in these rocks is that of the crescent
moon. The Hawaiian legends do not attempt any direct explanation of the
meaning of this picture writing. The traditions of the Polynesians both
concerning Hina and Maui look to Hina as the moon goddess of their
ancestors, and in some measure the Hawaiian stories confirm the
traditions of the other island groups of the Pacific.

Fornander, in his history of the Polynesian race, gives the Hawaiian
story of Hina's ascent to the moon, but applies it to a Hina the wife
of a chief called Aikanaka rather than to the Hina of Hilo, the wife of
Akalana, the father of Maui. However, Fornander evidently found some
difficulty in determining the status of the one to whom he refers the
legend, for he calls her "the mysterious wife of Aikanaka." In some of
the Hawaiian legends Hina, the mother of Maui, lived on the southeast
coast of the Island Maui at the foot of