Polynesian Mythology · The Legend of Māui (2/4)

He answered them, “It is certainly a very good cause which leads me to undertake this journey, and if, when reaching the place I am going to, I find everything agreeable and nice, then I shall, perhaps, be pleased with it, but if I find it a bad, disagreeable place, I shall be disgusted with it.”

They replied to him, “What you say is exceedingly true, depart then upon your journey, with your great knowledge and skill in magic.” Then their brother went into the wood, and came back to them again, looking just as if he were a real pigeon. His brothers were quite delighted, and they had no power left to do anything but admire him.

Then off he flew, until he came to the cave which his mother had run down into and he lifted up the tuft of rushes; then down he went and disappeared in the cave, and shut up its mouth again so as to hide the entrance; away he flew very fast indeed, and twice he dipped his wing, because the cave was so narrow; soon he reached nearly to the bottom of the cave, and flew along it; and again, because the cave was so narrow, he dips 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 manapau trees,5 and flying on, he 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 that 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 up at it; ah, he struck it, but Māui had himself contrived that he should be struck by the stone which his father threw; for, but by his own choice, no one could have 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 Papatūānuku 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. Once as I was wandering upon the seashore, I prematurely gave birth to one of my children, and I cut off the long tresses of my hair, and bound him up in them, and threw him into the foam of the sea, and after that he was found by his ancestor Tama-nui-ki-te-rangi;” and then she told his history nearly in the same words that Māui-the-infant had told it to herself and his brothers in their house, and having finished his history, Taranga ended her discourse to her husband and his friends.

Then his mother asked Māui, who was sitting near her, “Where do you come from? from the westward?” and he answered,

“No.”

“From the northeast then?”

“No.”

“From the southeast then?”

“No.”

“From the south then?”

“No.”

“Was it the wind which blows upon me, which brought you here to me then?”

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 Māuitaha?”

He answered, “No.”

Then said she, “Are you Māui-tikitiki-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 Hinenuitepō, and death shall henceforth have no power over man.”

Then the lad was taken by his father to the water, to be baptized, and after the ceremony prayers were offered to make him sacred, and clean from all impurities; but when it was completed, his father Makeatutara felt greatly alarmed, because he remembered that he had, from mistake, hurriedly skipped over part of the prayers of the baptismal service, and of the services to purify Māui; he knew that the gods would be certain to punish this fault, by causing Māui to die, and his alarm and anxiety were therefore extreme. At nightfall they all went into his house.

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

Shortly after Māui had thus returned to his brothers, he slew and carried off his first victim, who was the daughter of Marutewhareaitu; afterwards, by enchantments, he destroyed the crops of Marutewhareaitu, so that they all withered.

He then again paid a visit to his parents, and remained for some time with them, and whilst he was there he remarked that some of their people daily carried away a present of food for some person; at length, surprised at this, he one day asked them, “Who is that you are taking that present of food to?”

And the people who were going with it answered him, “It is for your ancestress, for Muri-ranga-whenua.”

He asked again, “Where does she dwell?”

They answered, “Yonder.”

Thereupon he says, “That will do; leave here the present of food, I will carry it to her myself.”

From that time the daily presents of food for his ancestress were carried by Māui himself; but he never took and gave them to her that she might eat them, but he quietly laid them by on one side, and this he did for many days. At last, Muri-ranga-whenua suspected that something wrong was going on, and the next time he came along the path carrying the present of food, the old chieftainess sniffed and sniffed until she thought she smelt something coming, and she was very much exasperated, and her stomach began to distend itself, that she might be ready to devour Māui as soon as he came there. Then she turned to the southward, and smelt and sniffed, but not a scent of anything reached her; then she turned round from the south to the north, by the east, with her nose up in the air sniffing and smelling to every point as she turned slowly round, but she could not detect the slightest scent of a human being, and almost thought that she must have been mistaken; but she made one more trial, and sniffed the breeze towards the westward. Ah! then the scent of a man came plainly to her, so she called aloud, “I know from the smell wafted here to me by the breeze that somebody is close to me,” and Māui murmured assent. Thus the old woman knew that he was a descendant of hers, and her stomach, which was quite large and distended, immediately began to shrink and contract itself again. If the smell of Māui had not been carried to her by the western breeze, undoubtedly she would have eaten him up.

When the stomach of Muri-ranga-whenua had quietly sunk down to its usual size, her voice was again heard saying, “Art thou Māui?” and he answered,

“Even so.”

Then she asked him, “Wherefore hast thou served thy old ancestress in this deceitful way?” and Māui answered,

“I was anxious that thy jawbone, by which the great enchantments can be wrought, should be given to me.”

She answered, “Take it, it has been reserved for thee.” And Māui took it, and having done so returned to the place where he and his brothers dwelt.

The young hero, Māui, 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; 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 labour 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 not you see me change myself into the likeness of every bird of the forest; you and I equally had the aspect and appearance of men, yet I by my enchantments changed suddenly from the appearance of a man and became a bird, and then, continuing to change my form, I resembled this bird or that bird, one after the other, until I had by degrees transformed myself into every bird in the world, small or great; and did I not after all this again assume the form of a man? [This he did soon after he was born, and it was after that he snared the sun.] Therefore, as for that feat, oh, my brothers, the changing myself into birds, I accomplished it by enchantments, and I will by the same means accomplish also this other thing which I have in my mind.” When his brothers heard this, they consented on his persuasions to aid him in the 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 (tuamaka), and the manner of plaiting flat ropes (paraharaha), and of spinning round ropes; at last, they finished making all the ropes which they required. Then Māui 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 Māui then lay in wait on one side of the place out of which the sun rises, and Māui himself lay in wait upon the other side.

The young hero held in his hand his enchanted weapon, the jawbone of his ancestress⁠—of Muri-ranga-whenua, 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 out; 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 (while I attack him), 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 forepaws pass through; then are pulled tight the ropes, and the monster began to struggle and roll himself about, whilst the snare jerked backwards and forwards as he struggled. Ah! was not he held fast in the ropes of his enemies!

Then forth rushed that bold hero, Māui-tikitiki-o-Taranga, with his enchanted weapon. Alas! the sun screams aloud; he roars; Māui 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 crept slowly along its course. Then was learnt by men 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 Tamanuiterā?” Thus was learnt his second name. At last they let him go. Oh, then, Tamanuiterā went very slowly and feebly on his course.

Māuitaha and his brothers, after this feat, returned again to their own house, and dwelt there, and dwelt there, and dwelt there; and after a long time his brothers went out fishing, whilst Māui-tikitiki-o-Taranga stopped idly at home doing nothing, although indeed he had to listen to the sulky grumblings of his wives and children, at his laziness in not catching fish for them. Then he called out to the women, “Never mind, O mothers, yourselves and your children need not fear. Have not I accomplished all things? and as for this little feat, this trifling work of getting food for you, do you think I cannot do that? certainly; if I go and get a fish for you, it will be one so large that when I bring it to land you will not be able to eat it all, and the sun will shine on it and make it putrid before it is consumed.” Then Māui snooded his enchanted fish hook, which was pointed with part of the jawbone of Muri-ranga-whenua; and when he had finished this, he twisted a stout fishing line to his hook.

His brothers in the meantime had arranged amongst themselves to make fast the lashings of the top sides of their canoe, in order to go out for a good day’s fishing. When all was made ready, they launched their canoe, and as soon as it was afloat Māui jumped into it, and his brothers, who were afraid of his enchantments, cried out, “Come, get you out again; we will not let you go with us; your magical arts will get us into some difficulty.” So he was compelled to remain ashore whilst his brothers paddled off, and when they reached the fishing ground they lay upon their paddles and fished, and after a good day’s sport returned ashore.

As soon as it was dark night Māui went down to the shore, got into his brothers’ canoe, and hid himself under the bottom boards of it. The next forenoon his brothers came down to the shore to go fishing again, and they had their canoe launched, and paddled out to sea without ever seeing Māui, who lay hid in the hollow of the canoe, under the bottom boards. When they got well out to sea, Māui crept out of his hiding place; as soon as his brothers saw him they said, “We had better get back to the shore again as fast as we can, since this fellow is on board;” but Māui, by his enchantments, stretched out the sea, so that the shore instantly became very distant from them, and by the time they could turn themselves round to look for it it was out of view.

Māui now said to them, “You had better let me go on with you; I shall at least be useful to bail the water out of our canoe.” To this they consented, and they paddled on again, and speedily arrived at the fishing ground where they used to fish upon former occasions.

As soon as they got there his brothers said, “Let us drop the anchor and fish here;” and he answered,

“Oh no, don’t; we had much better paddle a long distance further out.”

Upon this they paddle on, and paddle as far as the farthest fishing ground, a long way out to sea, and then his brothers at last say: “Come now, we must drop anchor and fish here.”