“There was no war then between the valley of Atuona and that of Hana-menu; the people of both crossed the mountains and visited one another.  But it was discovered in Atuona that a number of the people were missing.  Some had gone to Hana-menu and never reached there, others had disappeared on their way home.  The chief of Atuona sent a messenger who was tapu in all valleys, to count the people of this valley who were in Hana-menu and to warn them to return in a band, armed with spears.  Meanwhile the priest went to the High Place and spoke to the gods, and after two days and nights he returned and said that the danger was at the pass between the valleys; that a demon had seized the people there.

“The demon was Male Package.  You know the precipice there is near the sky, and at the very height is a puta faiti, a narrow place.  There Male Package lay in wait, armed with his spear and club, and hidden in the grass.  He was hungry for meat, for Long Pig, and when he saw some one he fancied, he threw his spear or struck them down with the u’u.  He took the corpse on his back and carried it to his hut in the upper valley of Hana-menu as I would carry a sack of copra.  There he ate what he would, alone.

“Oh, there were those who knew, but they were afraid to tell.  After it became known to the people of Atuona, to the kin of those who had been eaten, they did nothing.  Male Package was like Great Night Moth later—­a man whom the gods fought for.”

Great Night Moth sat smoking, listening to what was said in the listless way that lunatics listen, unable to focus his attention, but gathering in his addled brain that he was being discussed.  I watched him as one does a caged tiger, guessing at the beast’s thoughts and thankful that it can prey no more.

Many Pieces of Tattooing had no tone of horror or regret in his voice while he recounted the bloody deeds of Mohuho and Pohue-toa, but smiled, as if he would say that they had occurred under a different dispensation and were not blameful.

“Was Great Night Moth the real son of Male Package?” I asked.

“Ah, that is to be told,” said Many Pieces.  “He was his son, yes.  Shall I tell you the tale of how he escaped death at the hands of his father? Ea! I remember the time well.  Menike, you have seen the rivers big and the cocoanut-trees felled by the flood, but you have not seen the ave one, the time of no food, when the ground is as dry as the center of a dead tree, and hunger is in the valleys like the ghost-women that move as mist.  There have been many such periods for the island peoples.

“That two years it did not rain.  The breadfruit would not yield.  The grass and plants died.  There were no nuts on the palms.  The pigs had no food, and fell in the forest.  The banana-trees withered.  The people ate the popoi from the deepest pits, and day and night they fished.  Soon the pits were empty and the people ate roots, bark, anything.  There were fish, but it is hard to live on fish alone.