This is the second post about Maui - the most important figure in Maori mythology.
My first post is titled King of New Zealand’s Mythology

Maui remained with his parents in the underground world, and soon began to notice strange things that aroused his curiosity and pushed him towards his next feat. It turned out that most of the food in the underground world was given to Grandmother. Once Maui went to visit her, and while being there traded from Grandmother magic Jaw in exchange for food. Grandmother felt that her grandchild isn’t a usual mortal and decided that Maui will need this magic Jaw in his future feats. Without her magic Jaw Grandmother couldn’t eat so much and this is how the underworld was freed from its burden.
Years went by and Maui grew up to be a man. He married a woman from upper world, lived and worked in the village together with his brothers. But in the upper world too, his sharp mind wouldn’t let him to live a normal life.

Slowing the Sun down

People in the upper world suffered from short days – the sun was going to quickly through the skies and people couldn’t do all their chores in the short time of daylight. But no one could even think that this could be changed. Together with his brothers Maui noosed the Sun and began hitting it with the magic Jaw he got from his Grandmother. Finally Sun begged him to stop, and since then, weakened, Sun slowly moves in the sky making the day much longer.

Harnessing the Fire

Once Maui started thinking about fire; He thought where did it come from and how can he make it when needed. He discovered that only his mother new the source of fire, but she didn’t tell anyone. So Maui decided to destroy all the fires, leaving his mother no choice but to create a new fire. She decided to send a messenger to Mahuika, the goddess of fire who lived in the underground world. Maui volunteered to be that messenger, and quickly reached the house of the goddess. She was glad to meet Maui of whom she heard great stories, and agreed to give him the source of fire – one of her fingernails. But Maui wanted to discover the very secret of fire, and he came back again and again and eventually took all Mahuika’s fingernails. Mahuika became furious, fire has raged in her house. Maui transformed himself into a falcon and fled, but fire still left marks on his feathers (and since then all falcons have some brown feathers as if they were burned). The fire that resulted from Mahuika’s rage was going wild everywhere – in the air, water, and on the land. It seemed as if the fire would soon consume the whole world. Then Maui began to pray to his ancestors, gods of rain, and they extinguished the fire by pouring great amounts of rain. Only a few sparks were left in bark of trees. This eventually benefited people as they learned to extract fire by rubbing wood. Since then people can make fire whenever they want to.

Attempt at Immortality

Years went by, and Maui grew old. He was still cheerful, but in his hare appeared a few silver strings and his sons reached adulthood. To relieve him from the shame of his sons’ tricks, Maui has thrown both of them to the sky – one became the Morning Star and the other became the Evening Star. Maui’s older brother asked Maui to do the same for him and became the Polar Star and since then Maui’s sons and brother give light and joy to people on earth.

Sun moved slowly through the sky reminding Maui of the feat from his youth. Maui lived on the land that he brought from ocean depths; in the evenings he ate food cooked on the fire that he brought from Mahuika. His friend and relatives never forgot about his feats and waited for new ones. Being an old man Maui conceived the greatest feat of all – he decided to defeat the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-po so that people would become immortal. Maui jumped into her throat to cut it from inside, so that only his tattooed legs were hanging outside. The sight of his legs making odd moves caused wagtail to laugh loudly (this wagtail was one of the birds that Maui called to help him in his feat). Hine woke up and closed his teeth on Maui bringing him to his death. The whole day and night sad birds were quiet grieving Maui. But eventually they forgot about him because life is too short to spend on grief, and death is like a deep sleep that comes down on everyone when they get tired.

This beautiful story was told during ages from father to son and reached our time. I hope you liked it.

Rotorua Maori Hangi and Concert