In the lowest and darkest the soul lost consciousness, became a worm, and returning to earth, died there.

Eternal life was the lot of only the select few who ascended to Rangi.
Yet once upon a time there was going and coming between earth and the place of darkness, as the legend of the origin of the later style of tattooing shows.

Thus the story runs.

The hero Mata-ora had to wife the beautiful Niwa Reka.

One day for some slight cause he struck her, and, leaving him in anger, she fled to her father, who dwelt in the Underworld.