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MĀUI

MĀUI

A culture hero, trickster and ancient chief. Stories about his exploits are told in nearly every Polynesian land. He fishes up the North Island, Slows down the sun, and even tamed fire. While Māui in most cases is regarded as a or fully divine figure, in some places he is regarded as merely human

PULLING UP THE ISLANDS OF HAWAII
Māui has a great fish hook called Manaiakalani, and it is baited with the wing of Hira's pet bird, the ʻalae. Māui is said to have created Hawaii's islands by tricking his brothers. He convinces them to take him out fishing, but catches his hook upon the ocean floor. He tells his brothers that he caught a big fish, and tells them to paddle as hard as they can. His brothers paddle with all their might, and being intent with their effort, did not notice the island rising behind them. Māui repeats this trick many times, creating the Hawaii islands.

RESTRAINING THE SUN
Māui next task was to stop the sun from moving so fast. His mother Hina complains that her kapa is unable to dry because the days are so short. Māui climbs to the mountain Hale-a-ka-lā (house of the sun) and lassoes the sun's rays as the sun comes up, using a rope he made from his sister's hair. The sun pleads for life and agrees that the days shall be longer in the summer and short in winter.

FISHERMAN
Māuiwas a poor fisherman, even though he had a hook that would let him catch anything. Māui's brothers would often make fun of him for the amount of fish he brought back but he would get his revenge by playing tricks on them.

LIFTING THE SKY
Māuirealized that men were constraining the sky. The sky was too low and people were not able to stand upright. Māui felt terrible when he saw the people of earth suffering from this and so he wanted to help. So Māui searched for his father in order to help him raise the sky so that the men would no longer suffer from the falling sky. Māui traveled to the town of Lahaina in order to meet his father. Together they went to lift the sky, Māui then lay parallel to the sky in order to push it upwards with his great power. Māui then gave the signal to his father to start pushing the sky up as well. Together with the strength of father and son, they were able to push the sky up high enough for the people of earth to continue doing their daily tasks. Some say that if Māui and his father had not worked together that the sky would have fallen, making earth inhabitable for humans. Thus saving mankind.

DEFEATING THE LONG EEL
After Māuihad fished up the islands, he began to wonder what was actually on those islands. He then traveled to the different islands and realized they were inhabitable. There were kapa houses but with no one living inside of them.

Māui learned a lot of new lessons while visiting these new islands, so he decided to return home and live with respect to the fashion of the houses he had seen on the islands. Māuithen pursued Hina and made her his wife, she was living in a thatched house at the time, of which she took very good care.

One day Hina went down to the river bank to fetch some water for Māui and herself. Hina encountered the Long Eel Tuna at the bank, and Tuna struck her and covered her with slime. Hina was able to escape back to the house but did not tell Māui what had happened. But the next day it happened again and Hina told Māui. Māui then ventured to the banks to find and kill Tuna.

He laid out traps in order for the eel to come out of hiding. When Tuna came out of hiding, Māui used his stone axe and killed Tuna. The Long Eel had been causing trouble to a lot of townsfolk. Māui then buried the eel, causing a palm tree to grow and thus creating coconuts.