"Though this is possibly the most ancient and most remote in origin of all Polynesian myths, referring as it does to that one who in our Genesis was 'more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made', its meaning has usually been disguised in printed versions on grounds of delicacy - Tuna being said to have 'struck Hina with his tail', or 'bitten her', or something of that kind.

Since snakes are unknown in the Pacific Islands, our very old friend the phallic serpent must needs assume the form of a monster eel (tuna) in stories that require his ritual killing to originate the principal food-plant of the region..."

"Tuna's origins are much more remote than anything that can be described as Polynesian. He is Joseph Campbell's 'great Serpent of the Eastern Planters' (8: 384-391). Campbell has shown us there that the myth must be related to that critical point in the palaeolithic at which 'the idea occured to some of the women grubbing for edible plants to concentrate their food plants in gardens'. It is certain, he says, 'that the functions of planting and of this myth are related and that the myth flourishes among gardeners... We may guess the date [of its origins] to have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7500 B.C..."