Polynesian Mythology: The Legend of Maui

The Legend of Maui

ONE day Maui asked his brothers to tell him the place where their father and mother dwelt; he begged earnestly that they would make this known to him in order that he might go and visit the place where the two old people dwelt; and they replied to him: 'We don't know; how can we tell whether they dwell up above the earth, or down under the earth, or at a distance from up.' Then he answered them: 'Never mind, I think I'll find them out'; and his brothers replied: 'Nonsense, how can you tell where they are--you, the last born of all of us, when we your elders have no knowledge where they are concealed from us; after you first appeared to us, and made yourself known to us and to our mother as our brother, you know that our mother used to come and sleep with us every night, and as soon as the day broke she was gone, and, lo, there was nobody but ourselves sleeping in the house, and this took place night after night, and how can we tell then where she went or where she lives? But he answered: 'Very well, you stop here and listen; by and by you will hear news of me.'

For he had found something out after he was discovered by his mother, by his relations, and by his brothers. They discovered him one night whilst they were all dancing in the great House of Assembly. Whilst his relations were all dancing there, they found out who he was in this manner. For little Maui, the infant, crept into the house, and went and sat behind one of his brothers, and hid himself, so when their mother counted her

1 and was thrown by you into the foam of the surf, after you had wrapped me up in a tuft of your hair, which you cut off for the purpose; then the seaweed formed and fashioned me, as caught in its long tangles the ever-heaving surges of the sea rolled me, folded as I was in them, from side to side; at length the breezes and squalls which blew from the ocean drifted me on shore again, and the soft jelly-fish of the long sandy beaches rolled themselves round me to protect me; then again myriads of flies alighted on me to buzz about me and lay

1 and flying on, he perched upon the top of one of these trees, under which the people had seated themselves; and when he saw his mother lying down on the grass by the side of her husband, he guessed at once who they were, and he thought: 'Ah! there sit my father and mother right under me'; and he soon heard their names, as they were called to by their friends who were sitting with them; then the pigeon hopped down, and perched on another spray a little lower, and it pecked off one of the berries of the tree and dropped it gently down, and bit the father with it on the forehead; and some of the party said: 'Was it a bird which threw that down? but the father said: 'Oh no, it was only a berry that fell by chance.'

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1, this was the cause of the introduction of death into the world (Hine-nui-te-po being the goddess of death: if Maui had passed safely through her, then no more human beings would have died, but death itself would have been destroyed), and we express it by saying: 'The water-wagtail laughing at Maui-tikitiki-o-Taranga made Hine-nui-te-po squeeze him to death.' And we have this proverb: 'Men make heirs, but death carries them off.'

Thus end the deeds of the son of Makea-tu-tara, and of Taranga, and the deeds of the sons of Rangi-nui, and of Papa-tu-a-Nuku; this is the narrative about the generations of the ancestors of the Maori, and therefore, we the people of that country, preserve closely these traditions of old times, as a thing to be taught to the generations that come after us, so we repeat them in our prayers, and whenever we relate the deeds of the ancestors from whom each family is descended, and upon other similar occasions.

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Footnotes

12:1 If a child was born before its time, and thus perished without having known the joys and pleasures of life, it was carefully buried with peculiar incantations and ceremonies; because if cast into the water, or carelessly thrown aside, it became a malicious being or spirit, actuated by a peculiar antipathy to the human race, who it spitefully persecuted, from having been itself deprived of happiness which they enjoyed. All their malicious deities had an origin of this kind.

20:1 The manapau was a species of tree peculiar to the country from whence the people came, where the priests say it was known by that name.

36:1 This quarrel of Maui with his brother-in-law, Irawaru, is sometimes narrated in this way:

Maui and his brother-in-law had been paying a visit to the people of a village not very distant from where they lived; when they were about to return home again, Maui asked his brother-in-law to carry a little provision for them both upon their short journey, but Irawaru answered surlily: 'What should I carry any provision for, indeed? why I have just had an excellent meal': they then started, and Maui, who was very angry, by his enchantments drew out the earth as they proceeded, so as to lengthen exceedingly the road they had to41:1 Inhabitants of New Zealand