Note 12 — Introductory material

When Pikoiakaalala let fly his arrow, it hit the old woman whose eyes were dim and had grown small because of her great age.12 At seeing this Mainele and the people refused to give up the stakes as the old woman was not a rat, but a human being. Pikoiakaalala answered that the object hit by his arrow was a rat, saying: “When a baby is born it is called a child; when it grows bigger it is called a youth; when it stops growing it is called a full-grown man; when he walks with a cane he is called an old man; and when his eyes grow small he is likened to a rat ‘haumaka-iole,’13 a rat. Is not that a rat? It is a rat.” Mainele was therefore beaten.