THE SEVEN GREAT DEEDS OF MA-UI
The number seven has no significance in Polynesian tradition; the number eight has. It just happened that the number of Ma-ui’s deeds that had interest for me as a story-teller was seven. Fornander has only short and passing notices of Ma-ui, and all the material for the stories given here has been taken from Mr. W. D. Westervelt’s valuable Ma-ui the Demi-God. Ma-ui is a hero for all the Polynesians, and Mr. Westervelt tells us that either complete or fragmentary Ma-ui legends are found in the single islands and island groups of Aneityum, Bowditch or Fakaofa, Efate, Fiji, Fotuna, Gilbert, Hawaii, Hervey, Huahine, Mangaia, Manihiki, Marquesas, Marshall, Nauru, New Hebrides, New Zealand, Samoa, Savage, Tahiti or Society, Tauna, Tokelau, and Tonga. Ma-ui is, in short, a Pan-Polynesian hero, and it is as a Pan-Polynesian hero that I have treated him, giving his legend from other sources than those that are purely Hawaiian. However, I have tried to make Hawaii the background for all the stories. Note that Ma-ui’s [[205]]position in his family is the traditional position for a Polynesian hero—he is the youngest of his brothers, but, as in the case of other heroes of the Polynesians, he becomes the leader of his family.
Ma-ui’s mother was Hina. She is distinguished from the numerous Hinas of Polynesian tradition by being “Hina-a-ke-ahi,” “Hina-of-the-Fire.” I follow the New Zealand tradition that Mr. Westervelt gives in telling how Ma-ui was thrown into the sea by his mother and how the jelly-fish took care of him. Ma-ui’s throwing the heavy spear at the house is also out of New Zealand. His overthrowing of the two posts is out of the Hawaiian tradition. But in that tradition it is suggested that his two uncles were named “Tall Post” and “Short Post.” They had been the guardians of the house, and young Ma-ui had to struggle with them to win a place for himself in the house. Ma-ui’s taking away invisibility from the birds and letting the people see the singers is out of the Hawaiian tradition. So is Ma-ui’s kite-flying. The Polynesian people all delighted in kite-flying, but the Hawaiians are unique in giving a kite to a demi-god. The incantation beginning “O winds, winds of Wai-pio” is Hawaiian; the other incantation, “Climb up, climb up,” is from New Zealand.
The fishing up of the islands is supposed by scholars to be a folk-lore account of the discovery of new islands after the Polynesian tribes had put off from Indonesia. The story that I give is mainly Hawaiian—it is out of Mr. Westervelt’s book, of course—but I have borrowed from the New Zealand and the Tongan accounts too; the fish-hook made from the jaw-bone of his ancestress is out of the New Zealand tradition, and the chant “O Island, O great Island” is Tongan.
The story of Ma-ui’s snaring the sun is Hawaiian, and the scene of this, the greatest exploit in Polynesian tradition, is on the great Hawaiian mountain Haleakala. The detail about [[206]]the nooses of the ropes that Ma-ui uses—that they were made from the hair of his sister—is out of the Tahitian tradition as given by Gill.
The Hawaiian story about Ma-ui’s finding fire is rather tame; he forces the alae or the mud-hen to give the secret up to him. I have added to the Hawaiian story the picturesque New Zealand story of his getting fire hidden in her nails from his ancestress in the lower world. There is an Hawaiian story, glanced at by Fornander, in which Ma-ui obtains fire by breaking open the head of his eldest brother.
The story of Ma-ui and Kuna Loa, the Long Eel, as I give it, is partly out of the Hawaiian, partly out of the New Zealand tradition, and there is in it, besides, a reminiscence of a story from Samoa. All of these stories are given in Mr. Westervelt’s book. That Kuna Loa tried to drown Ma-ui’s mother in her cave—that is Hawaiian; that Hina was driven to climb a bread-fruit tree to get away from the Long Eel—that is derived from the Samoan story. And the transformation of the pieces of Kuna Loa into eels, sea monsters, and fishes is out of the New Zealand tradition about Ma-ui. “When the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend,” says Mr. Westervelt, “they said, ‘Kuna is not a Hawaiian word. It means something like a snake or a dragon, something we do not have in these islands.’ This, they thought, made the connection with the Hina legend valueless until they were shown that Tuna (or Kuna) was the New Zealand name of the reptile which attacked Hina and struck her with his tail like a crocodile, for which Ma-ui killed him. When this was understood, the Hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder of the legend, and compare it with the New Zealand story.” “This dragon,” Mr. Westervelt goes on, “may be a remembrance of the days when the Polynesians were supposed to dwell by the banks of the River Ganges in India, when [[207]]crocodiles were dangerous enemies and heroes saved families from their destructive depredations.” Mrs. A. P. Taylor of Honolulu writes me in connection with this passage: “There is a spring in the Palama district in Honolulu called Kuna-wai (‘Eel of Water’). In Hawaiian, kuna-kuna means eczema, a skin disease.”
The story of the search that Ma-ui’s brother made for his sister is from New Zealand. Ma-ui’s brother is named Ma-ui Mua and Rupe. His sister is Hina-te-ngaru-moana, “Hina, the daughter of the Ocean.”
The splendidly imaginative story of how Ma-ui strove to win immortality for men is from New Zealand. The Goblin-goddess with whom Ma-ui struggles is Hina-nui-te-po, “Great Hina of the Night,” or “Hina, Great Lady of Hades.” According to the New Zealand mythology she was the daughter and the wife of Kane, the greatest of the Polynesian gods. There seems to be a reminiscence of the myth that they once possessed in common with the New Zealanders in the fragmentary tale that the Hawaiians have about Ma-ui striving to tear a mountain apart. “He wrenched a great hole in the side. Then the elepaio bird sang and the charm was broken. The cleft in the mountain could not be enlarged. If the story could be completed it would not be strange if the death of Ma-ui came with his failure to open the path through the mountain.” So Mr. Westervelt writes.
The Ma-ui stories have flowed over into Melanesia, and there is a Fijian story given in Lorimer Fison’s Tales of Old Fiji, in which Ma-ui’s fishing is described. Ma-ui, in that story, is described as the greatest of the gods; he has brothers, and he has two sons with him. With his sons he fishes up the islands of Ata, Tonga, Haabai, Vavau, Niua, Samoa, and Fiji. Ma-ui’s sons depart from the Land of the Gods and seize upon the islands that their father had fished up. Then Disease and Death [[208]]come to the islands that the rebel gods, Ma-ui’s sons, have seized. Afterwards Ma-ui sent to them “some of the sacred fire of Bulotu.”