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Hawaiian - Hema Legend
Puna is brought up on Oahu, Hema on Maui at Kauiki, called Hawaii-kua-uli (Hawaii of the green back). Hema grows to be a handsome man and takes Lua(Ulu, Ula)-mahehoa from the upper Iao valley in Wailuku as his wife. In the fifth month of her pregnancy he sails after the birth gift called Apo-ula (Red feather band) to the land of the child's maternal grandparents. They are deep-sea divers and "it is a custom in that country to take men's eyes for fishbait." Hema's eyes are gouged out and he loses his wits ("caught by the aaia bird of Kane"). The last part of his chant reads, in Emerson's translation:
"Hema sailed for Kahiki
Seeking the birth gift (Apoula)
Caught was Hema seized by the Aaia,
He fell at Kahiki, at Kapakapaua,
Remaining at Ulupaupau,
There are the eyes of Hema."
[Maori.] Hema is the son of Kai-tangata and Whaitiri. He weds Ara-whita-i-te-rangi (Arahuta) who becomes mother of Tawhaki and Karihi or weds Kare-nuku, who becomes mother of Pupu-mai-nono, Karihi, Tawhaki, or weds Uru-tonga and has Karihi and Tawhaki or Hema, daughter of the same, weds Hu-aro-tu and has Karihi, Pupu-mai-nono, Tawhaki. Forbid-den to follow her mother when Whaitiri leaves for her own country, she attempts the journey and is taken captive by Te-tini-o-Waiwai (The little spirits of the water).Hema is slain by the Ponaturi, underwater people, or killed and his wife taken captive at the settlement of the whale people Paikea, Kewa, and Ihu-puku,or slain by the Patu-pae-a-rehe. In some versions Karihi is called the "child" of Whaitiri.
[Tahiti]. Hina weds No‘a-huruhuru (hairy), who has saved her from her cannibal mother Rona (or Haumea), and has two sons, Pu‘a-ari‘i-tahi and Hema. The mother favors Hema because he does not refuse to louse her hair and to swallow a red (and a white) louse which he finds in so doing. She accordingly promises him a goddess for a wife. He is to find Hua-uri (or Hina-tahutahu) at her bathing pool called Vai-te-marama (at the Vaipoopoo river at Hanapepe) and catch her by the hair and carry her past four (or twenty) houses without letting her feet touch the ground; then she will lose her power and follow him. The first time he cannot resist her pleadings, lets her down, and she runs away from him; the second time he succeeds. Tafa‘i-iri-ura(-i-o-ura) is their child, Arihi-nui-a-Pu‘a is the child of Pu‘a. When her child is abused by the other children Hema's wife curses her husband and he tries to commit suicide by leaping head down from the A‘a-‘ura and is caught by spirits and carried to the Po (Tumu-i-Havai‘i) where his body becomes "a deposit for the spirits' dung" and his eyes are used "as morning lights at the mat-weaving place of Ta‘aroa's daughter." Hence in Tahiti a man with a skin disease is compared with Hema as "a place for the excrement of the spirits."
Hawaiian Mythology, by Martha Beckwith, Yale University Press [1940, copyright not renewed] and is now in the public domain.
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