A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

THE LEGEND OF MAUI

(Polynesian)

Once when his relations were all dancing in the great House of Assembly they found out who he was. 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 children that they might stand up ready for the dance, she said: “One, that’s Maui-taha; two, that’s Maui-roto; three, that’s Maui-pae; four, that’s Maui-waho”; and then she saw another, and cried out: “Hollo, where did this fifth come from?” Then little Maui, the infant, answered: “Ah, I’m your child, too.” Then the mother counted them all over again, and said: “Oh, no, there ought to be only four of you; now for the first time I’ve seen you.” Then little Maui and his mother stood for a long time disputing about this in the very middle of the ranks of all the dancers.

At last she got angry, and cried out: “Come, you, be off now, out of the house at once; you are no child of mine, you belong to some one else.” Then little Maui spoke out quite boldly, and said: “Very well, I’d better be off, then, for I suppose, as you say it, I must be the child of some other person; but indeed I did think I was your child when I said so, because I knew I was born by the side of the sea, and was thrown by you into the foam of the surf, after you had wrapped me up in a long tress 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 buzzed about me, and flocks of birds collected round me to tear me to pieces, but at that moment appeared there also my great ancestor, Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi, and he saw the flies and birds collected in clusters and flocks above the jelly-fish, and behold, within there lay a human being; then he caught me up and carried me to his house, and he hung me up in the roof that I might feel the warm smoke and the heat of the fire, so I was saved alive by the kindness of that old man. At last I grew, and then I heard of the fame of the dancing of this great House of Assembly. It was that which brought me here. But ever since I can remember I have heard the names of these your first-born children, as you have been calling them over until this very night, when I again heard you repeating them. In proof of this I will now recite your names to you, my brothers. You are Maui-taha, and you are Maui-roto, and you are Maui-pae, and you are Maui-waho, and as for me, I’m little Maui-the-baby, and here I am sitting before you.”

When his mother, Taranga, heard all this, she cried out: “You dear little child, you are indeed my last-born, therefore I now tell you your name shall be Maui-tiki-tiki-o-Taranga,” and he was called by that name.

It was now night; but early in the morning Taranga rose up, and suddenly, in a moment of time, she was gone from the house where her children were. As soon as they woke up they looked all about to no purpose, as they could not see her; the elder brothers knew she had left them, and were accustomed to it; but the little child was exceedingly vexed; yet he thought: “I cannot see her, ’tis true, but perhaps she has only gone to prepare some food for us.” No-no—she was off, far, far away.

Now, at nightfall when their mother came back to them, her children were dancing and singing as usual. As soon as they had finished, she called to her last-born, “Come here, my child, let us sleep together”; so they slept together; but as soon as day dawned, she disappeared. The little fellow now felt quite suspicious at such strange proceedings on the part of his mother every morning. So, at length, another night, he crept out of bed in the night and stole his mother’s apron, her belt, and clothes, and hid them; then he went and stopped up every crevice in the wooden window, and in the doorway, so that the light of the dawn might not shine into the house, and make his mother hurry to get up. But after he had done this his little heart still felt very anxious and uneasy, lest his mother should, in her impatience, rise in the darkness, and defeat his plans. But the night dragged its slow length along without his mother moving; at last there came the faint light of early morn, but his mother still slept on; then the sun rose up, and mounted far up above the horizon; now at last his mother moved, and began to think to herself, “What kind of night can this be, to last so long?” and having thought thus, she dropped asleep again. Again she awoke, and began to think to herself, but could not tell that it was broad daylight outside, as the window and every chink in the house were stopped up closely.

At last up she jumped; and finding herself without her clothes or her belt or her apron, she ran and pulled out the things with which the windows and chinks in the doors were stopped up, and whilst doing so, oh, dear! oh, dear! there she saw the sun high up in the heavens; then she snatched up, as she ran off, the old flax cloak, with which the door of the house had been stopped up, and carried it off as her only covering; getting, at last, outside the house, she hurried away, and ran crying at the thought of having been so badly treated by her own children.

As soon as his mother got outside the house, little Maui jumped up, and kneeling upon his hands and knees peeped after her through the doorway into the bright light. Whilst he was watching her, she reached down to a clump of rushes, and snatching it up from the ground, dropped into a hole underneath it, and clapping the rushes into the hole again as if it were its covering, so disappeared. Then little Maui jumped on his feet, and, as hard as he could go, ran out of the house, pulled up the clump of rushes, and peeping down, discovered a beautiful open cave running quite deep into the earth.

He covered up the hole again and returned to the house, and waking up his brothers who were still sleeping, said: “Come, come, my brothers, rouse up, you have slept long enough; come, get up; here we are again cajoled by our mother.” Then his brothers made haste and got up; alas! alas! the sun was quite high up in the heavens.

The little Maui now asked his brothers again, “Where do you think the place is where our father and mother dwell?” and they answered: “How should we know, we have never seen it; although we are Maui-taha, and Maui-roto, and Maui-pae, and Maui-waho, we have never seen the place; and do you think you can find that place which you are so anxious to see? What does it signify to you? Cannot you stop quietly with us? What do we care about our father, or about our mother? Did she feed us with food till we grew up to be men? not a bit of it. Why, without doubt, Rangi, or the Heaven, is our father, who kindly sent his offspring down to us: Hau-whenna, or gentle breezes, to cool the earth and young plants; and Hau-ma-ringiringi, or mists, to moisten them; and Hau-ma-roto-roto, or fine weather, to make them grow; and Tonarangi, or rain, to water them; and Tomairangi, or dews, to nourish them. He gave these his offspring to cause our food to grow, and then Papa-tu-a-nuku, or the Earth, made her seeds to spring, and grow forth, and provide sustenance for her children in this long-continuing world.”

Little Maui then answered: “What you say is truly quite correct; but such thoughts and sayings would better become me than you, for in the foaming bubbles of the sea I was nursed and fed: it would please me better if you would think over and remember the time when you were nursed at your mother’s breast; it could not have been until after you had ceased to be nourished by her milk that you could have eaten the kinds of food you have mentioned; as for me, oh! my brothers, I have never partaken either of her milk or of her food; yet I love her, for this single reason alone—that she is my mother; and because I love her, I wish to know the place where she and my father dwell.”

His brothers felt quite surprised and pleased with their little brother when they heard him talk in this way, and when, after a little time, they had recovered from their amazement, they told him to try and find their father and mother. So he said he would go. It was a long time ago that he had finished his first labor, for when he first appeared to his relatives in their house of singing and dancing, he had on that occasion transformed himself into the likeness of all manner of birds, of every bird in the world, and yet no single form that he then assumed had pleased his brothers; but now when he showed himself to them, transformed into the semblance of a pigeon, his brothers said: “Ah! now indeed, oh, brother, you do look very well indeed, very beautiful, very beautiful, much more beautiful than you looked in any of the other forms you assumed, when you first discovered yourself to us.” What made him look so beautiful now were the belt and apron he had stolen from his mother. The shining white upon his breast was her belt, the glossy black feathers at his throat, the fastening to the belt. Then off he flew until he came to the clump of rushes, closing the opening of the cave into which his mother had disappeared. Then down he went into the cave, shutting up its mouth with the rushes so as to hide the entrance. Away he flew, very fast indeed, and twice he dipped his wing, because the cave was narrow; soon he reached nearly to the bottom of the cave, and flew along it; and again, because the cave was so narrow, he dipped first one wing and then the other, but the cave now widened, and he dashed straight on.

At last he saw a party of people coming along under a grove of trees; they were a special kind of tree, called manapan trees, that belonged to the country. Maui flying on, 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 hit 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.”

Then the pigeon again pecked off some of the berries from the tree, and threw them down with all its force, and struck both father and mother, so that he really hurt them; then they cried out, and the whole party jumped up and looked into the tree, and as the pigeon began to coo, they soon found out from the noise where it was sitting amongst the leaves and branches, and the whole of them, the chiefs and common people alike, caught up stones to pelt the pigeon with, but they threw for a very long time without hitting it; at last the father tried to throw a stone at it; ah, he struck it, but Maui had himself contrived that he should be struck by the stone which his father threw; for, but by his choice no one could hit him; he was struck exactly upon his left leg, and down he fell, and as he lay fluttering and struggling upon the ground, they all ran to catch him, but lo! the pigeon had turned into a man.

Then all those who saw him were frightened at his fierce glaring eyes, which were red as if painted with red ochre, and they said: “Oh, it is now no wonder that he so long sat still up in the tree; had he been a bird he would have flown off long before, but he is a man.” And some of them said: “No, indeed, rather a god—just look at his form and appearance; the like has never been seen before since Rangi and Papa-tu-a-nuku were torn apart.” Then Taranga said: “I used to see one who looked like this person every night when I went to visit my children, but what I saw then excelled what I see now; just listen to me.” Then she told the story of Maui as he had told it to her and his brothers himself.

Then Taranga asked Maui, who was sitting near her, “Where do you come from? from the west?” and he answered, “No.” “From the north-east, then?” “No.” “From the south-east then?” “No.” “From the south then?” “No.” “Was it the wind which blows upon me—the wind that brought you here to me?” When she asked this, he opened his mouth and answered, “Yes.” And she cried out, “Oh, this then is indeed my child”; and she said, “Are you Maui-taha?” He answered, “No.” Then said she, “Are you Maui-tiki-tiki-o-Taranga?” and he answered, “Yes.” And she cried aloud: “This is, indeed, my child. By the winds and storms and wave-uplifting gales he was fashioned and became a human being; welcome, oh, my child, welcome! By you shall hereafter be climbed the threshold of the house of your great ancestor Hine-nui-te-po, and death shall thenceforth have no power over man.” This prophecy, however, was not fulfilled, for when the time came for him to encounter Hine-nui-te-po, he was himself killed.

Maui, after these things, returned to his brothers to tell them that he had found his parents, and to explain where they dwelt.

The young hero, Maui, had not been long at home with his brothers when he began to think that it was too soon after the rising of the sun that it became night again, and that the sun again sank down below the horizon, every day, every day; in the same manner the days appeared too short to him. So at last one day he said to his brothers, “Let us now catch the sun in a noose, so that we may compel him to move more slowly, in order that mankind may have long days to labor in to procure subsistence for themselves”; but they answered him, “Why, no man could approach it on account of its warmth, and the fierceness of its heat”; but the young hero said to them: “Have you not seen the multitude of things I have already achieved? Did I not by degrees transform myself into every bird in the world, small or great; and did I not after all this again assume the form of a man? As for that feat, I accomplished it by enchantments, and I will by the same means accomplish also this other thing which I have in mind.” When his brothers heard this they consented to aid him in his conquest of the sun.

Then they began to spin and twist ropes to form a noose to catch the sun in, and in doing this they discovered the mode of plaiting flax into stout, square-shaped ropes, and the manner of plaiting flat ropes, and of spinning round ropes; at last they finished making all the ropes they required. Then Maui took up his enchanted weapon, and he took his brothers with him, and they carried their provisions, ropes, and other things with them in their hands. They travelled all night, and as soon as day broke, they halted in the desert, and hid themselves that they might not be seen by the sun; and at night they renewed their journey, and before dawn they halted and hid themselves again; at length they got very far, very far to the eastward, and came to the very edge of the place out of which the sun rises.

Then they set to work and built on each side of this place a long high wall of clay, with huts of boughs of trees at each end to hide themselves in; when these were finished, they made the loops of the noose, and the brothers of Maui then lay in wait on one side of the place out of which the sun rises, and Maui himself lay in wait upon the other side. The young hero held in his hand his enchanted weapon, the jaw-bone of his ancestress, and said to his brothers: “Mind now, keep yourselves hid, and do not go showing yourselves foolishly to the sun; if you do, you will frighten him; but wait patiently until his head and fore-legs have got well into the snare, then I will shout; you haul away as hard as you can on the ropes on both sides, and then I’ll rush out and attack him, but do you keep your ropes tight for a good long time, until he is nearly dead, when we will let him go; but mind now, my brothers, do not let him move you to pity with his shrieks and screams.”

At last the sun came rising up out of his place, like a fire spreading far and wide over the mountains and forests; he rises up, his head passes through the noose, and it takes in more and more of his body, until his fore-paws pass through; then the ropes are pulled tight, and the monster begins to struggle and roll himself about, whilst the snare jerks backward and forward as he struggles. Ah! is he not held fast in the ropes of his enemies!

Then forth rushes that bold hero, Maui-tiki-tiki-o-Taranga, with his enchanted weapon. Alas! the sun screams aloud; he roars; Maui strikes him fiercely with many blows; they hold him for a long time; at last they let him go, and then weak from wounds the sun creeps slowly along its course. Then men learned the second name of the sun, for in its agony the sun screamed out: “Why am I thus smitten by you! oh, man! do you know what you are doing? Why should you wish to kill Tama-nui-te-Ra?” At last they let him go. Oh, then, Tama-nui-te-Ra went very slowly and feebly on his course.