Like almost everything in Easter Island, the practice of the Bird-man ritual has a mythical origin that accentuates the romantic character of this enigmatic and amazing land. Tradition says that, in the beginning, there were no birds on the island. A witch called Hitu was sitting in Hotu Nui when she saw a human skull on a rock. When she was about to grab it, a wave swept it into the sea, and the witch went after it. Despite swimming as far as she could, the sea currents and the waves did not let her reach the skull, and before she could notice, the strength of the ocean had swept her away from the island. She swam all night in order not to sink, and the next day she saw that she was near the motu Matiro Hiva (Sala y Gómez) islets. The skull was still ahead of her, and when it touched the land it became Make Make. He helped Hitu get out of the water. In the island lived the god Hava, who took them to his house and fed them for a few days. The island was full of birds, and Make Make asked Hava to give him one in order to populate Easter Island.
The god returned to the island and let the birds out near the Poike peninsula. When he returned during rearing season, he saw with disgust that the islanders had eaten all the eggs, so he decided to take the birds to another part of the island. The same thing happened. After several attempts, one of the eggs fell through a gap of the Vai a Tare zone and escaped human predation. It became the first Manutara (sacred bird) of the island. In order to prevent men from eating the eggs, Make Make decided to restrict the area of the eggs to the islets in front of Orongo, where the manutara greatly reproduced. That is why the men must swim to Motu Nui to search for manutara eggs.