TE IKA A MAUI
Listen:
Taranga was his mother, but—ah, for Tama-nui-ki-te Rangi! ah, for Tama-nui-ki-te Rangi, what would have become of Maui? But a prey of the birds of the sea, ah! Tama found a bundle of jellyfish and sea-kelps on the shore, and the sea-birds were collecting around it fighting and screaming; so he went, and, stripping the fish and sea-kelps, he saw that they were covering and enclosing a child—Maui-potiki.
Ah, behold Maui-potiki, Maui, the infant, reared and fashioned by the fish and the weeds and the waves, by storms and gales of the rolling sea—ah, but for Tama-nui-ki-te Rangi, what would have become of Maui, alone on the shore? What but a prey of the sea-birds?
Maui-potiki!
Ah, Listen:
Before his time Maui was born, and Taranga, his mother, who gave birth to him on the border of the sea, knew that he could not live; therefore she cut her hair, and, wrapping it around him, she threw him into the surf of the sea—ah. She sang many incantations which have power over the evil spirits; for know, my listener, they are watching for the children who are born to life, before their life is ripe. They try to enter the body and fill the departing spirit of the child with hatred for man—for the departing spirit will never know and receive the joys of man; and therefore, friend, the dead-born children form the multitude of evil spirits.