The district through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name "Wai-kuna" or "Kuna's…
- Date of account
- Published 1910
- Source
- Legends of Ma-ui—a demi god of Polynesia, and of his mother Hina
- Reference
- Legends of Ma-ui—a demi god of Polynesia, and of his mother Hina · selected passage 35
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
The district through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name "Wai-kuna" or "Kuna's river." When the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend, they said "Kuna is not a Hawaiian word
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe district through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name "Wai-kuna" or "Kuna's river." When the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend, they said "Kuna is not a Hawaiian word. It means something like a snake or a dragon, something we do not have in these islands." This, they thought, made the connection with the Hina legend valueless until they were shown that Tuna (or kuna) was the New Zealand name of a reptile which attacked Hina and struck her with his tail like a crocodile, for which Maui killed him. When this was understood, the Hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder of this legend and compare it with the New Zealand story. In New Zealand there are several statements concerning Tuna's dwelling place. He is sometimes represented as coming from a pool to attack Hina and sometimes from a distant stream, and sometimes from the river by which Hina dwelt. The Hawaiians told of the annoyances which Hina endured from Kuna while he lived above her home in the Wailuku. He would stop up the river and fill it with dirt as when the freshets brought down the debris of the storms from the mountain sides.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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