One day a man while out hunting met Hotʻho and said to him, “You can not make me freeze, no matter how cold you can make it.” Hotʻho replied, “I can do that without much trouble.” They had a long discussion of the matter and at last agreed that they would have that night a trial of strength. [357]

After reaching home the man carried in wood enough to burn all night; then building a huge fire, he made a large kettle full of hemlock tea. When night came he stood before the fire ready for the contest. All night long there he stood, turning first one side and then the other to the fire and often drinking a cup of the boiling hemlock tea. It was a terribly cold night and continued to grow colder until near morning. Just at the break of day Hotʻho, naked, and carrying his hatchet in a slit in the skin above his hip, came into the lodge, and sitting down on a pile of bark by the fire, said to the man, “You have beaten me;” and at that moment, growing warmer, it began to thaw.

This shows that man can conquer Hotʻho, the god of cold weather.