Ameta, 'the dark one,' is the human protagonist of the Hainuwele myth and the mediator between the mundane and dema orders. Hunting with his dog, he found the first coconut lodged on the tusk of a boar that had drowned in a pond; instructed in a dream, he planted it wrapped in a serpent-figured cloth, and it grew in days to a flowering palm. Climbing to cut its blossoms for palm wine he gashed his finger, and where his blood fell a girl-child, Hainuwele, formed on the flower. He reared her, profited by the treasures she produced, and when the nine families murdered her at the Maro dance he found her by the coconut-leaf oracle, unearthed and cut up the body, and planted the pieces to bring forth the staple tubers, carrying her arms to Satene. Though a mortal man, he is the agent through whom the dema gifts of coconut and tuber enter the world.