2 creatures were threats

"Hawaiians use the term 'kaao' for a fictional story or one in which fancy plays an important part, that of 'moolelo' for a narrative about a historical figure, one which is supposed to follow historical events. Stories of the gods are moolelo ... Folk tale in the form of anecdote, local legend or family history is also classed under moolelo. It is by far the most popular form of story-telling surviving today ... Many a so-called moolelo which a foreigner would reject as fantastic nevertheless corresponds with the Hawaiian view of the relationship between nature and man."

-- Martha Beckwith, "Hawaiian Mythology" (1940, 1970)

» The Tube/Topside

As Randy Makapu'u contemplated the Pono Commission's land swap offer -- his ancestral lands on Oahu for an even larger and potentially more profitable tract on the Kona Coast of the Big Island ...

As the young chiefs Kaneloa and Puka of the 'Iolani Palace Tuber clan rested at the Tuber resort at Bellows before continuing on to the Big Island to contend for the right to marry Princess Tuberosa La'a ...

As King Kavawai and Queen Tuberosa 'Ekahi and their kahus prepared for the arrival of young Tuber men from throughout the archipelago ...

As the sun dipped toward a Green Flash off the Kona Coast ...

Two creatures who posed great threats to the Tubers and their peaceful, traditional Hawaiian way of life were on the prowl. Tough to say which posed the greater threat.

The first was waking into the human world from a great sleep in the spirit realm. Once known as Keko'ona, a Molokai chief, he was coming to life again as a 300-foot eel that once slipped through the opening of a fishpond teeming with fish. Inside, he gorged himself to the extreme, and when he tried to slither out again found he was far too fat. Hearing humans, he escaped by breaking down the fishpond wall.

Now he was cruising the deep sea bottom in the 'Alenuihaha Channel between Molokai and the Big Island, and something in his half-human, half-eel brain, something like memory, something like instinct, was guiding him to a place where a great hole in the earth opened up to the sea, and within that great hole creatures lived. Edible kine.

Then there was the eternal urge of the eel brain to slide into a hole.

The second threat to the Tubers was tromping the arid lava and kiawe scrub of the Kona Coast. He was being guided by education and instinct. He'd done his homework, read every legend and bit of history he could lay his hands on, figured he now knew more about Hawaiian culture and religion than 95 percent of the Hawaiians marching around shouting about their rights.

Difference was, Barge Huntley didn't give a fish's butt about the culture. To paraphrase the immortal Jack Webb: Just the artifacts, ma'am. Just the artifacts.