The Day of Falling Water

The first day of the new year 2011, I took a drive to the waterfalls. I stopped at Waianuenue (Rainbow Falls), where I had been 11 years previously with Jane. The cave beneath this waterfall is the mythic home of the goddess Hina. It is here that the giant red mo'o, Kuna, forced himself upon Hina and, when rejected, tried to drown her. As she was about to go under for the last time, Maui, her son, came and saved her, leaving his canoe (as a long basalt boulder) in the river downstream. The mo'o hid, but upstream, at Maui's request, Madame Pele threw boiling hot lava rocks into the river to flush out the mo'o. Finally, Maui slew the monster and left the body below the falls--a long black island called Mo'o Kuna.