A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

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.