Tregear. — Polynesian Folk-lore. 499 



was Hina's own bird, the " Alae," with which the hook was 

 baited : — 



" The great fish-hook of Maui, 



Manaia-te-Rangi. * * * 



The bait was the Alae of Hina, 



Let down upon Hawaiki, 



The sacred tangle, the painful death, 



Seizing upon the foundations of the earth, 



Floating it up to the surface of the sea." 



There are many fragments of the tradition to be found in 

 Samoan song and legend. In the genealogy of the primitive 

 gods are several Sinas, the first of whom, " Sina the tropic- 

 bird," is the wife of Pili, the son of Tangaloa. In one of their 

 love songs it is related that— 



" Sina longed to get Maluafiti, 

 He was her heart's desire, and long she had waited for him. 

 Maluafiti fro^vned and would return. 

 And off he went with his sisters. 



Sina cried and screamed, and determined to follow swimming. 

 The sisters pleaded to save and bring her ; 

 Maluafiti relented not, and she died on the ocean." 



But if this Sina was Sina the Swimmer, the Samoans know 

 another bright Sina, " the woman in the moon." " Sina (the 

 white) was busy one evening with mallet in hand beating out 

 on a board some of the bark of the paper mulberry, with which 

 to make native cloth. It was during a time of famme. The 

 moon was just rising, and reminded her of a great bread-fruit ; 

 looking up to it she said, ' Why cannot you come down and let 

 my child have a bit of you ? ' The moon was indignant at the 

 thought of being eaten, came down forthwith and took her up, 

 child, board, mallet and all. At the full of the moon, young 

 Samoa still looks up and traces the features of Sina." Hina 

 also finds her way into one of the ancient Deluge legends : as 

 the daughter of Tangaloa she is sent down by her father in the 

 form of a bird, turi (the snipe), '*' but after flying about for a 

 long time, can find no resting-place — nothing but ocean ; so she 

 returns to heaven. Again sent down by Tangaloa, " she 

 observed spray, then lumpy places, then water breaking, then 

 land above the surface, and then a dry place where she could 

 rest. She went back and told her father. He again sent her 

 down ; she reported extending surface of laud, and then he sent 

 her down with some earth and a creeping plant. The plant 

 grew, and she continued to come down and visit it," etc. In 

 Hawaii, she seems also to be connected with the Deluge, as 

 Hina-lele, generally called simply Hina ; she is the goddess 

 of fishes, and thus compares with the western Hina-ika, the 

 wife of Tinirau, the fish-deity. There are genealogical evidences 

 in Hawaiian legend as to the coincidence between the two Hinas, 



* Turi is her son, in a legend above cited, 



