Polynesian Mythology · The Legend of Māui (1/4)

The Legend of Māui

One day Māui 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 us.”

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 then found out who he was in this manner. For little Māui, 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 Māuitaha; two, that’s Māuiroto; three, that’s Māuipae; four, that’s Māuiwaho;” and then she saw another, and cried out, “Halloa, where did this fifth come from?”

Then little Māui, the infant, answered, “Ah, I’m your child too.”

Then the old woman 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 Māui 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 someone else.”

Then little Māui 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 at the side of the sea,3 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,4 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 jellyfish 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 their eggs, that maggots might eat me, and flocks of birds collected round me to peck me to pieces, but at that moment appeared there also my great ancestor, Tama-nui-ki-te-rangi, and he saw the flies and the birds collected in clusters and flocks above the jellyfish, and the old man ran, as fast as he could, and stripped off the encircling jellyfish, 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 from the time I was in your womb, I have heard the names of these your firstborn children, as you have been calling them over 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 Māuitaha, and you are Māuiroto, and you are Māuipae, and you are Māuiwaho, and as for me, I’m little Māui-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, the son of my old age, therefore I now tell you your name shall be Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, or Māui-formed-in-the-topknot-of-Taranga,” and he was called by that name.

After the disputing which took place on that occasion, his mother, Taranga, called to her lastborn, “Come here, my child, and sleep with the mother who bore you that I may kiss you, and you may kiss me,” and her ran to sleep with his mother.

Then his elder brothers were jealous, and began to murmur about this to each other. “Well, indeed, our mother never asks us to go and sleep with her; yet we are the children she saw actually born, and about whose birth there is no doubt. When we were little things she nursed us, laying us down gently on the large soft mats she had spread out for us⁠—then why does she not ask us now to sleep with her? when we were little things she was fond enough of us, but now we are grown older she never caresses us, or treats us kindly. But as for this little abortion, who can tell whether he was really nursed by the sea tangles or by whom, or whether he is not some other person’s child, and here he is now sleeping with our mother. Who would ever have believed that a little abortion, thrown into the ocean, would have come back to the world again a human being!⁠—and now this little rogue has the impudence to call himself a relation of ours.”

Then the two elder brothers said to the two younger ones, “Never mind, let him be our dear brother; in the days of peace remember the proverb⁠—when you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a friendly way⁠—when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by violence. It is better for us, oh, brothers, to be kind to other people; these are the ways by which men gain influence in the world⁠—by labouring for abundance of food to feed others⁠—by collecting property to give to others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others, so that peace spreads through the world. Let us take care that we are not like the children of Ranginui and of Papatūānuku, who turned over in their minds thoughts for slaying their parents; four of them consented, but Tāwhirimātea had little desire for this, for he loved his parents; but the rest of his brothers agreed to slay them; afterwards when Tāwhiri saw that the husband was separated far from his wife, then he thought what it was his duty to do, and he fought against his brothers. Thence sprang the cause which led Tūmatauenga to wage war against his brethren and his parents, and now at last this contest is carried on even between his own kindred, so that man fights against man. Therefore let us be careful not to foster divisions amongst ourselves, lest such wicked thoughts should finally turn us each against the other, and thus we should be like the children of Ranginui and of Papatūānuku.”

The two younger brothers, when they heard this, answered, “Yes, yes, oh, eldest brothers of ours, you are quite right; let our murmuring end here.”

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. But at last, upon another night, as he slept again with his mother, the rest of his brothers that night also sleeping with them, the little fellow crept out 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, so that at one end of a long house you could see the legs of the people sleeping at the other end of it, 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 to sleep 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 closely up.

At last up she jumped; and finding herself quite naked, began to look for her clothes, and apron, but could find neither; then she ran and pulled out the things with which the chinks in the windows and 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 clout of a 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, crying at the thought of being so badly treated by her own children.

As soon as his mother got outside the house, little Māui jumped up, and kneeling upon his hands and knees peeped after her through the doorway into the bright light. Whilst he was watching her, the old woman reached down to a tuft of rushes, and snatching it up from the ground, dropped into a hole underneath it, and clapping the tuft of rushes in the hole again, as if it were its covering, so disappeared. Then little Māui jumped on his feet, and, as hard as he could go, ran out of the house, pulled up the tuft 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 Māui 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 Māuitaha, and Māuiroto, and Māuipae, and Māuiwaho, 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; Hauwhenua, or gentle breezes, to cool the earth and young plants; and Haumaringiringi, or mists, to moisten them; and Haumarotoroto, or fine weather, to make them grow; and Tōuarangi, 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 Papatūānuku, or the earth, made her seeds to spring, and grow forth, and provide sustenance for her children in this long-continuing world.”

Little Māui 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 I lay in her womb; and because I love her, I wish to know where is 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 labour, 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 which you assumed, and then changed from, when you first discovered yourself to us.”

What made him now look so well in the shape he had assumed was the belt of his mother, and her apron, which he had stolen from her while she was asleep in the house; for the very thing which looked so white upon the breast of the pigeon was his mother’s broad belt, and he also had on her little apron of burnished hair from the tail of a dog, and the fastening of her belt was what formed the beautiful black feathers on his throat. He had once changed himself into this form a long time ago, and now that he was going to look for his father and mother, and had quitted his brothers to transform himself into the likeness of a pigeon, he assumed exactly the same form as on the previous occasion, and when his brothers saw him thus again, they said, “Oh, brother! oh, brother! you do really look well indeed;” and when he sat upon the bough of a tree, oh, dear! he never moved, or jumped about from spray to spray, but sat quite still, cooing to himself, so that no one who had seen him could have helped thinking of the proverb⁠—“A stupid pigeon sits on one bough, and jumps not from spray to spray.”

Early the next morning, he said to his brothers, as was first stated, “Now do you remain here, and you will hear something of me after I am gone; it is my great love for my parents that leads me to search for them; now listen to me, and then say whether or not my recent feats were not remarkable. For the fact of transforming oneself into birds can only be accomplished by a man who is skilled in magic, and yet here I, the youngest of you all, have assumed the form of all birds, and now, perhaps, after all, I shall quite lose my art, and become old and weakened in the long journey to the place where I am going.”

His brothers answered him thus:⁠—“That might be indeed, if you were going on a warlike expedition, but, in truth, you are only going to look for those parents who we all so long to see, and if they are found by you, we shall ever after all dwell happily, our present sorrow will be ended, and we shall continually pass backwards and forwards between our dwelling place and theirs, paying them happy visits.”