Polynesian Mythology · The Legend of Māui (3/4)

And he replies again: “Oh, the fish here are very fine I suppose, but we had much better pull right out to sea, and drop anchor there. If we go out to the place where I wish the anchor to be let go, before you can get a hook to the bottom, a fish will come following it back to the top of the water. You won’t have to stop there a longer time than you can wink your eye in, and our canoe will come back to shore full of fish.”

As soon as they hear this they paddle away⁠–⁠they paddle away until they reach a very long distance off, and his brothers then say: “We are now far enough.”

And he replies: “No, no, let us go out of sight of land, and when we have quite lost sight of it, then let the anchor be dropped, but let it be very far off, quite out in the open sea.”

At last they reach the open sea, and his brothers begin to fish. Lo, lo, they had hardly let their hooks down to the bottom, when they each pulled up a fish into the canoe. Twice only they let down their lines, when behold the canoe was filled up with the number of fish they had caught. Then his brothers said: “Oh, brother, let us all return now.”

And he answered them: “Stay a little; let me also throw my hook into the sea.”

And his brothers replied: “Where did you get a hook?”

And he answered: “Oh, never mind, I have a hook of my own.”

And his brothers replied again: “Make haste and throw it then.” And as he pulled it out from under his garments, the light flashed from the beautiful mother-of-pearl shell in the hollow of the hook, and his brothers saw that the hook was carved and ornamented with tufts of hair pulled from the tail of a dog, and it looked exceedingly beautiful. Māui then asked his brothers to give him a little bait to bait his hook with; but they replied: “We will not give you any of our bait.” So he doubled his fist and struck his nose violently, and the blood gushed out, and he smeared his hook with his own blood for bait, and then be cast it into the sea, and it sank down, and sank down, till it reached to the small carved figure on the roof of a house at the bottom of the sea, then passing by the figure, it descended along the outside carved rafters of the roof, and fell in at the doorway of the house, and the hook of Māui-tikitiki-o-Taranga caught first in the sill of the doorway.

Then, feeling something on his hook, he began to haul in his line. Ah! ah! there ascended on his hook the house of that old fellow Tonganui. It came up, up; and as it rose high, oh dear! how his hook was strained with its great weight; and there came gurgling up foam and bubbles from the earth, as of an island emerging from the water, and his brothers opened their mouths and cried aloud.

Māui all this time continued to chant forth his incantations amidst the murmurings and wailings of his brothers, who were weeping and lamenting, and saying, “See now, how he has brought us out into the open sea, that we may be upset in it, and devoured by the fish.”

Then he raised aloud his voice, and repeated the incantation called Hiki, which makes heavy weights light, in order that the fish he had caught might come up easily, and he chanted an incantation beginning thus:⁠—

“Wherefore, then, oh! Tonganui,

Dost thou hold fast so obstinately below there?”

When he had finished his incantation, there floated up, hanging to his line, the fish of Māui, a portion of the earth, of Papatūānuku. Alas! alas! their canoe lay aground.

Māui then left his brothers with their canoe, and returned to the village; but before he went he said to them, “After I am gone, be courageous and patient; do not eat food until I return, and do not let our fish be cut up, but rather leave it until I have carried an offering to the gods from this great haul of fish, and until I have found a priest, that fitting prayers and sacrifices may be offered to the god, and the necessary rites be completed in order. We shall thus all be purified. I will then return, and we can cut up this fish in safety, and it shall be fairly portioned out to this one, and to that one, and to that other; and on my arrival you shall each have your due share of it, and return to your homes joyfully; and what we leave behind us will keep good, and that which we take away with us, returning, will be good too.”

Māui had hardly gone, after saying all this to them, than his brothers trampled under their feet the words they had heard him speak. They began at once to eat food, and to cut up the fish. When they did this, Māui had not yet arrived at the sacred place, in the presence of the god; had he previously reached the sacred place, the heart of the deity would have been appeased with the offering of a portion of the fish which had been caught by his disciples, and all the male and female deities would have partaken of their portions of the sacrifice. Alas! alas! those foolish, thoughtless brothers of his cut up the fish, and behold the gods turned with wrath upon them, on account of the fish which they had thus cut up without having made a fitting sacrifice. Then, indeed, the fish began to toss about his head from side to side, and to lash his tail, and the fins upon his back, and his lower jaw. Ah! ah! well done Tangaroa, it springs about on shore as briskly as if it was in the water.

That is the reason that this island is now so rough and uneven⁠—that here stands a mountain⁠—that there lies a plain⁠—that here descends a vale⁠—that there rises a cliff. If the brothers of Māui had not acted so deceitfully, the huge fish would have lain flat and smooth, and would have remained as a model for the rest of the earth, for the present generation of men. This, which has just been recounted, is the second evil which took place after the separation of Heaven from Earth.

Thus was dry land fished up by Māui after it had been hidden under the ocean by Rangi and Tāwhirimātea. It was with an enchanted fishhook that he drew it up, which was pointed with a bit of the jawbone of his ancestress Muri-ranga-whenua; and in the district of Heretaunga they still show the fishhook of Māui, which became a cape stretching far out into the sea, and now forms the southern extremity of Hawke’s Bay.

The hero now thought that he would extinguish and destroy the fires of his ancestress of Mahuika. So he got up in the night, and put out the fires left in the cooking houses of each family in the village; then, quite early in the morning, he called aloud to the servants, “I hunger, I hunger; quick, cook some food for me.” One of the servants thereupon ran as fast as he could to make up the fire to cook some food, but the fire was out; and as he ran round from house to house in the village to get a light he found every fire quite out⁠—he could nowhere get a light.

When Māui’s mother heard this, she called out to the servants, and said, “Some of you repair to my great ancestress Mahuika; tell her that fire has been lost upon earth, and ask her to give some to the world again.” But the slaves were alarmed, and refused to obey the commands which their masters, the sacred old people, gave them, and they persisted in refusing to go, notwithstanding the old people repeatedly ordered them to do so.

At last Māui said to his mother, “Well, then, I will fetch down fire for the world; but which is the path by which I must go?”

And his parents, who knew the country well, said to him, “If you will go, follow that broad path that lies just before you there; and you will at last reach the dwelling of an ancestress of yours; and if she asks you who you are, you had better call out your name to her, then she will know you are a descendant of hers; but be cautious, and do not play any tricks with her, because we have heard that your deeds are greater than the deeds of men, and that you are fond of deceiving and injuring others, and perhaps you even now intend in many ways to deceive this old ancestress of yours, but pray be cautions not to do so.”

But Māui said, “No, I only want to bring fire away for men, that is all, and I’ll return again as soon as I can do that.” Then he went, and reached the abode of the goddess of fire; and he was so filled with wonder at what he saw, that for a long time he could say nothing. At last he said, “Oh, lady, would you rise up? Where is your fire kept? I have come to beg some from you.”

Then the aged lady rose right up, and said, “Au-e! who can this mortal be?” and he answered,

“It’s I.”

“Where do you come from?” said she; and he answered,

“I belong to this country.”

“You are not from this country,” said she; “your appearance is not like that of the inhabitants of this country. Do you come from the northeast?”

He replied, “No.”

“Do you come from the southeast?”

He replied, “No.”

“Are you from the south?”

He replied, “No.”

“Are you from the westward?”

He answered, “No.”

“Come you, then, from the direction of the wind which blows right upon me?” and he said,

“I do.”

“Oh, then,” cried she, “you are my grandchild; what do you want here?”

He answered, “I am come to beg fire from you.”

She replied, “Welcome, welcome; here then is fire for you.”

Then the aged woman pulled out her nail; and as she pulled it out fire flowed from it, and she gave it to him. And when Māui saw she had drawn out her nail to produce fire for him, he thought it a most wonderful thing! Then he went a short distance off, and when not very far from her he put the fire out, quite out; and returning to her again, said, “The light you gave me has gone out, give me another.” Then she caught hold of another nail, and pulled it out as a light for him; and he left her, and went a little on one side, and put that light out also; then he went back to her again, and said, “Oh, lady, give me, I pray you, another light, for the last one has also gone out.” And thus he went on and on, until she had pulled out all the nails of the fingers of one of her hands; and then she began with the other hand, until she had pulled all the fingernails out of that hand, too; and then she commenced upon the nails of her feet, and pulled them also out in the same manner, except the nail of one of her big toes.

Then the aged woman said to herself at last, “This fellow is surely playing tricks with me.”

Then out she pulled the one toe nail that she had left, and it, too, became fire, and as she dashed it down on the ground the whole place caught fire. And she cried out to Māui, “There, you have it all now!” And Māui ran off, and made a rush to escape, but the fire followed hard after him, close behind him; so he changed himself into a fleet-winged eagle, and flew with rapid flight, but the fire pursued, and almost caught him as he flew. Then the eagle dashed down into a pool of water; but when he got into the water he found that almost boiling: the forests just then also caught fire, so that he could not alight anywhere, and the earth and the sea both caught fire too, and Māui was very near perishing in the flames.

Then he called on his ancestors Tāwhirimātea and Whatiri-mātakataka, to send down an abundant supply of water, and he cried aloud, “Oh, let water be given to me to quench this fire which pursues after me;” and lo, then appeared squalls and gales, and Tāwhirimātea sent heavy lasting rain, and the fire was quenched; and before Mahuika could reach her place of shelter, she almost perished in the rain, and her shrieks and screams became as loud as those of Māui had been, when he was scorched by the pursuing fire; thus Māui ended this proceeding. In this manner was extinguished the fire of Mahuika, the goddess of fire; but before it was all lost, she saved a few sparks which she threw, to protect them, into the Kaikōmako, and a few other trees, where they are still cherished; hence, men yet use portions of the wood of these trees for fire when they require a light.

Then he returned to the village, and his mother and father said to him, “You heard when we warned you before you went, nevertheless you played tricks with your ancestress; it served you right that you got into such trouble;” and the young fellow answered his parents,

“Oh, what do I care for that? do you think that my perverse proceedings are put a stop to by this? Certainly not; I intend to go on in the same way forever, ever, ever.”

And his father answered him, “Yes, then you may just please yourself about living or dying; if you will only attend to me, you will save your life; if you do not attend to what I say, it will be worse for you, that is all.” As soon as this conversation was ended, off the young fellow went to find some more companions for his other scrapes.

Māui had a young sister named Hinauri, who was exceedingly beautiful; she married Irawaru. One day Māui and his brother-in-law went down to the sea to fish; Māui caught not a single fish with his hook, which had no barb to it, but as long as they went on fishing Māui observed that Irawaru continued catching plenty of fish; so he thought to himself, “Well, how is this? how does that fellow catch so many whilst I cannot catch one?” Just as he thought this, Irawaru had another bite, and up he pulls his line in haste, but it had got entangled with that of Māui, and Māui thinking he felt a fish pulling at his own line, drew it in quite delighted; but when he had hauled up a good deal of it, there were himself and his brother-in-law pulling in their lines in different directions, one drawing the line towards the bow of the canoe, the other towards the stern.

Māui, who was already provoked at his own ill luck, and the good luck of his brother-in-law, now called out quite angrily, “Come, let go my line, the fish is on my hook.”

But Irawaru answered, “No, it is not, it is on mine.”

Māui again called out very angrily, “Come, let go, I tell you it is on mine.”

Irawaru then slacked out his line, and let Māui pull in the fish; and as soon as he had hauled it into the canoe, Māui found that Irawaru was right, and that the fish was on his hook; when Irawaru saw this too, he called out, “Come now, let go my line and hook.”

Māui answered him, “Cannot you wait a minute, until I take the hook out of the fish.”

As soon as he got the hook out of the fish’s mouth, he looked at it, and saw that it was barbed; Māui, who was already exceedingly wrath with his brother-in-law, on observing this, thought he had no chance with his barbless hook of catching as many fish as his brother-in-law, so he said, “Don’t you think we had better go on shore now?”

Irawaru answered, “Very well, let us return to the land again.”

So they paddled back towards the land, and when they reached it, and were going to haul the canoe on the beach, Māui said to his brother-in-law, “Do you get under the outrigger of the canoe, and lift it up with your back;” so he got under it, and as soon as he had done so, Māui jumped on it, and pressed the whole weight of the canoe down upon him, and almost killed Irawaru.

When he was on the point of death, Māui trampled on his body, and lengthened his backbone, and by his enchantments drew it out into the form of a tail, and he transformed Irawaru into a dog, and fed him with dung.6

As soon as he had done this, Māui went back to his place of abode, just as if nothing unusual had taken place, and his young sister, who was watching for the return of her husband, as soon as she saw Māui coming, ran to him and asked him, saying, “Māui, where is your brother-in-law?”

Māui answered, “I left him at the canoe.”

But his young sister said, “Why did not you both come home together?” and Māui answered,

“He desired me to tell you that he wanted you to go down to the beach to help him carry up the fish; you had better go therefore; and if you do not see him, just call out; and if he does not answer you, why then call out in this way, Mo-i, mo-i, mo-i.”