He was an enormous eel creature married to Hina – or possibly Ina or Tina. They seemed to be doing okay and the neighbors thought it was a match made in Heaven. But for some strange reason Hina decided that sharing her life with a big slimy fish was not ideal. So she decided to leave him.

Hina then tried dating a few guys, but every man she met was scared of her ex and turned her down. Which we can perfectly understand as he was a huge terrifying slimy beast.

Finally she met the fabulous hero Maui. They fell madly in love, one thing led to another and she moved into his place to shack up.

However, Te Tuna missed his wife. More to the point, his neighbors missed her even more and nagged him to get her back. So he challenged Maui to a duel.

It wasn’t your usual kind of duel. Each foe took it in turns to enter the body of the other and attempt to kill him from the inside. This is the kind of fight that only really works in a cartoon.

However that may be, Te Tuna was unable to kill Maui but Maui managed to shrink himself enough to enter Te Tuna’s head and explode it from the inside. They planted the bits of head in the garden and from it grew the first coconut tree. So that was the end of him, but also the beginning of a very useful and delicious staple.

The moral of this story is... Er, actually we don’t have a clue. Coconuts?

Among the Iwi people of the Māori, Te Tuna is called Te Tunaroa and is far more horrible.

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Article last revised on May 25, 2019 by the Godchecker data dwarves.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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