19. Thunder And Laigatonōhona

19. THUNDER AND LAIGATONŌHONA

Thunder used to beat everyone playing with the chunk stone. On one occasion he won all of the property from a certain man and finally his wife. When the man was stingy of her and would not give her up Thunder took fire and blew it on him so that he burned him all over. So the man ran away. Walking by the side of a river he heard someone pounding iron. He went to the place and found that Iron-woman was making the noise. When he reached her Iron-woman said, "Sit down on my bed," but he answered, "No; I am dirty." Then she took him to the water, and, when she put him in, the minnows ate off all of the burned meat so that he got well. Then Iron-woman said, "I want you to win everything back from him," and she made arrows for him with which he started back. Iron-woman also said to him, "When you arrive Thunder will say, 'Let us gamble together as we formerly did.' Then say to him, 'My arrows are not very good.' He will say 'Crane has a good one; let him loan it to you.'" It happened so, but the man went to get his own arrows. When they played the man won everything from Thunder, including his wife, but Thunder was stingy of her. Then the person blew fire on him and burned him and made him run off. He pursued him round all of the four corners of the earth, blowing fire upon him. He burned him so that his bones were split and dropped down. Laigatonōhona ("dung roller"), ¹ which was this person's name, picked them up and made a feather headdress out of them. They are stuck on his head to this day. Thunder, however, disappeared in the east. This is all.

Footnotes

184:1 An insect which rolls balls of cow manure about.