Hina and Akalana are Maui's parents in Hawaiian tradition, where Hina is identified as a mortal woman rather than the moon goddess of other Polynesian cycles.
⚠ This Hawaiian parentage contradicts the Maori tradition where Taranga and Makea-tutara are Maui's parents. Beckwith (1940) discusses regional variation in Maui's genealogy across Polynesia.
Hina is Maui's wife across many Polynesian traditions — the moon goddess paired with the trickster demigod, a union attested from Tonga and Samoa to the Tuamotus and New Zealand.
⚠ Hawaiian traditions sometimes identify Hina as Maui's mother rather than wife. Beckwith (1940) discusses the conflation of multiple figures named Hina across Polynesian traditions.
Tuna the great eel was Hina's lover, visiting her in the form of an eel that swam to her bathing pool. When Maui learned of the affair, he slew Tuna and buried his head, from which the first coconut tree grew.
Hina-puku-i'a is the fishing form of Hina in Hawaiian tradition, the moon goddess invoked as patroness of fishponds and provider of fish from the sea.
Hina, wearied by her endless labor of beating tapa cloth, attempted to climb a rainbow to the sun but was driven back by the heat. She climbed instead to Marama, the moon, where her figure is still visible beating tapa in the lunar light.
Maui wove ropes from Hina's sacred hair to snare the sun, enlisting his wife's power to bind Te Rā and slow its passage across the sky.
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