How Mui brought fire to the world

One evening, after eating a hearty meal,

Mui lay beside his fire staring into the
flames. He watched the flames flicker and
dance and thought to himself, "I wonder
where fire comes from.
Mui, being the curious person that he was,
decided that he needed to find out. In the
middle of the night, while everyone was
sleeping, Mui went from village to village
and extinguished all the fires until not a
single fire burned in the world. He then went
back to his whare and waited.
The next morning there was an uproar in the
village.
"How can we cook our breakfast, there's no
fire!" called a worried mother.
"How will we keep warm at night?" cried
another.
"We can't possibly live without fire!" the
villagers said to one another.
The people of the village were very
frightened. They asked Taranga, who was
their rangatira, to help solve the problem.
"Someone will have to go and see the great
goddess, Mahuika, and ask her for fire," said
Taranga.
None of the villagers were eager to meet
Mahuika, they had all heard of the scorching
mountain where she lived. So Mui offered to
set out in search of Mahuika, secretly glad
that his plan had worked.
"Be very careful," said Taranga. "Although
you are a descendant of Mahuika she will not
take kindly to you if you try and trick her.
"I'll find the great ancestress Mahuika and
bring fire back to the world," Mui assured
his mother.
Mui walked to the scorching mountain to
the end of the earth following the

instructions from his mother and found a

huge mountain glowing red hot with heat. At
the base of the mountain Mui saw a cave
entrance. Before he entered, Mui whispered
a special karakia to himself as protection
from what lay beyond. But nothing could
prepare Mui for what he saw when he
entered the sacred mountain of Mahuika.
Mahuika, the goddess, rose up before him,
fire burning from every pore of her body, her
hair a mass of flames, her arms outstretched,
and with only black holes where her eyes
once were. She sniffed the air.
"Who is this mortal that dares to enter my
dwelling?"
Mui gathered the courage to speak, "It is I,
Mui, son of Taranga."
"Huh!" Yelled Mahuika. "Mui, the son of
Taranga?"
"Yes the last born, Mui-tikitiki-a-Taranga."
"Well then, Mui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, welcome,
welcome to the essence of the flame,
welcome my grandchild."
Mahuika stepped closer to Mui, taking a
deep sniff of his scent. Mui stood
completely still, even though the flames from
Mahuika's skin were unbearably hot.
"So... why do you come, Mui-tikitiki-aTaranga?" Mahuika finally asked.
Mui said, "The fires of the world have been
extinguished, I have come to ask you for
fire." Mahuika listened carefully to Mui, and
then she laughed. She pulled a fingernail
from one of her burning fingers and gave it
to him.
"Take this fire as a gift to your people.
Honour this fire as you honour me."
So Mui left the house of Mahuika taking with
him the fingernail of fire.

As Mui walked along the side of the road he

thought to himself, "What if Mahuika had no
fire left, then where would she get her fire
from?"

Then, a mass of clouds gathered and a

torrent of rain fell to put out the many fires.
Mahuika's mountain of fire no longer burned
hot.

Mui couldn't contain his curiosity. He quickly

threw the fingernail into a stream and
headed back to Mahuika's cave.

Mahuika had lost much of her power, but still

she was not giving up. She took her very last
toenail and threw it at Mui in anger. The
toenail of fire missed Mui and flew into the
trees, planting itself in the Mahoe tree, the
Ttara, the Patete, the Pukatea, and the
Kaikmako trees. These trees cherished and
held onto the fire of Mahuika, considering it a
great gift.

"I tripped and fell," said Mui. "Could I please

have another?"
Mahuika was in a good mood. She hadn't
spoken to someone in quite some time and
she liked Mui. She gladly gave Mui another
of her fingernails.
But Mui soon extinguished this fingernail as
well and returned to Mahuika with another
excuse.
"A fish splashed my flame as I was crossing
the river," Mui said.
Mahuika provided another of her fingernails,
not suspecting that she was being tricked.

When Mui returned to his village he didn't

bring back fire as the villagers had expected.
Instead he brought back dry wood from the
Kaikmako tree and showed them how to rub
the dry sticks together forming friction which
would eventually start a fire. The villagers
were very happy to be able to cook their
food once more and to have the warmth of
their fires at night to comfort them.

This continued for most of the day until

Mahuika had used all her fingernails and had
even given up her toenails. When Mui
returned to ask for another, Mahuika was
furious. She knew Mui had been tricking her
and threw the burning toenail to the ground.

Mui satisfied his curiosity in finding the

origin of fire, although he very nearly paid
the ultimate price in doing so. To this day the
Kahu, the native hawk of Aotearoa, still
retains the red singed feathers on the
underside of its wings, a reminder of how
close Mui was to death.

Instantly Mui was surrounded by fire and

chased from the cave.

This is the story of how Mui brought fire to

the world.

Mui changed himself into a hawk and

escaped to the sky, but the flames burned so
high that they singed the underside of his
wings, turning them a glowing red.

Maui catching the sun

Mui dived towards a river, hoping to avoid

the flames in the coolness of the water, but
the immense heat made the water boil.
Mui was desperate. He called on his
ancestor Twhirimtea for help.
"Twhirimtea atua o ng hau e wh,
whinatia mai!"

Upon creation of the world, the sun thought

he received the bad part: since he
considered he was the only one at work.
He looked with envy at people underneath
on the ground, living quietly, and having
rest And as he was lazy, he decided to do
the same!
After all, he told himself, I am a god.
Men expect my coming and honour me, so I
can do what I like!

From now on, the sun rose up very late and

rapidly crossed Tahitis sky to sink behind the
island of Moorea, for a long, long night. And
the earth was suffering badly.
There was not enough heat to warm up
stones of ovens and not enough light to
prepare meals.
Maui, a young warrior, saw the irritated lips
of his bride, because she ate raw. When his
sadness turned into anger, he decided to
conquer the sun. He gathered the biggest
creepers, the longest seaweed, and the
strongest barks. When the pile was high as 5
men, he began to weave an extraordinary
fishing net with creepers, seaweeds and
barks. During the day he worked with the
fast suns light, by night he worked
underneath the starlight.
He had taken as main piece a long hair of his
fiance. The drowsy and hurried sun didnt
notice that the net was growing gradually.
As the trap was achieved, maui took
advantage of the night. He threw the net on
his shoulder and went up to the reef, at the
edge of the large hole through which the sun
usually rose up from the sea. Then he
waited.
After a long, long awake, he saw a light arose
from the hole. The glow grew and coloured
waves and clouds, it became more and more
strong, more and more intense. The birds
began to sing, and Maui knew that this light
was the sun.
When the first rays were engaged in the
hole, Maui threw his net, his huge net and
covered the entire hole, trapping the sun.
Realising he was prisoner, the latter
struggled furiously, but the net held out.
Twenty times he tried to escape into the sky.
Twenty times he was pushed back. Twenty
times he tried to return underground. Twenty
times he was held back.
Then the sun began to warm up so intensely
that the sea began to boil and the earth to

crack, so strong that one to one, all links of

the net burned. Seaweeds, creepers, pieces
of bark nothing withstood the immense
flames except the hair of the beautiful
bride of Maui. The sun could jump, warm and
swell; he was trapped by the neck and
suffocated. It gradually lost its glare, and
finally stopped, exhausted, defeated.
So Maui said:
- Its me, Maui, I caught the sun.
And the sun was begging:
- Deliver me, Maui, Im suffocating.
- NO! I wont. You will remain tied forever
because of the harm you did to my fiancee
and my people. Their lips are burned by the
raw saps and their eyes are full of night. You
will remain a prisoner!
- Maui, if you do not set me free, Ill die and if
I die, neither you nor your people could ever
live! Save me!
- Promise me first that our fishes and our
vegetables will be cooked before the night!
- I promise!
Then Maui delivered the sun and the sun
leaped into the sky.
Since that day the sun rises soon and sets
late. It is so long in his race that we have
time enough to cook fishes, vegetables and
fruits and to eat three times a day before the
night.
And sometimes when we watch the sunset,
we can see, very quickly, a green thin net: it
is the hair of the bride of Maui that was
hanging there so that the sun never forgets
his promise
Maui's brothers, weary of seeing their
younger brother catch fish by the kit full
when they could barely hook enough to feed
their families, usually tried to leave him
behind when they went fishing. But their

wives complained to Maui of a lack of fish, so

he promised them a catch so large they
would be unable to finish it before it went
bad.
To make good his boast Maui carefully
prepared a special fishhook which he pointed
with a chip from the magic jawbone, and
then hid under the flooring mats of his
brothers' fishing canoe.
At dawn the brothers silently set sail,
thinking they had managed to leave their
brother behind, and only when they were
well out to sea did Maui emerge. The
brothers were furious, but it was too late to
turn back. After they had fished in vain, Maui
suggested that they sail until well out of
sight of land, where they would catch as
many fish as the canoe could carry. The
dispirited brothers were easily persuaded,
and Maui's prediction came true. But even
when the canoe was so overladen with fish
that it was taking on water and the brothers
were ready to set sail for home, Maui
produced his own hook and line and against
their protests insisted on throwing it out. For
bait, he struck his nose until it bled and
smeared the hook with his own blood. As
Maui began to chant a spell 'for the drawing
up of the world' the line went taut. Though
the canoe lurched over and was close to
sinking, Maui grimly hauled all the harder
and his terrified brothers bailed the more
furiously.

New Zealand, called by the Maori Te Ika a

Maui, 'the Fish of Maui'.
Such an immense fish was indeed tapu
(sacred) and Maui hastily returned to his
island home for a tohunga (priest) to lift the
tapu. Though he bade them wait till he return
before they cut up the fish, Maui's brothers
began to scale and eat the fish as soon as he
was gone - a sacrilege that angered the gods
and caused the fish to writhe and lash about.
For this reason much of the North Island is
mountainous. Had Maui's counsel been
followed the whole island today would have
been level.
In mythology the feat of Maui in providing
land ranks only after the separation of Earth
and Sky in the story of creation. According to
some tribes not only is the North Island the
'Fish of Maui' but the South Island is the
canoe from which the gigantic catch was
made and Stewart Island its anchor-stone.
Maui's fishhook is Cape Kidnappers in
Hawke's Bay, once known as Te Matau a
Maui, 'Maui's fishhook'. Throughout Polynesia
the Maui myths are recounted and the claim
is made by other islands that Maui fished
them from the deep. This supports the
theory that Maui may have been an early
voyager, a creator-discoverer, who seemed
to fish up new land as it slowly appeared
above the horizon.
GODS AND GODDESSES
1. Tmatauenga

Maui fishing up the North Island of New

Zealand
At last Maui's catch was dragged to the
surface and they all gazed in wonder. For
Maui's hook had caught in the gable of the
whare runanga (meeting house) of Tonganui
(Great South) and with it had come the vast
wedge of land now called the North Island of

In Mori mythology, T or Tmatauenga

(Mori: 'T of the angry face') is one of
the great gods, the origin of War and
Balance. All war-parties were dedicated to
him, and he was treated with the greatest
respect and awe. He is usually a son of
the primordial parent, sky and earth (see
Rangi and Papa). In a Te Arawa version,
Tmatauenga advises his brothers to kill
their parents Rangi and Papa in order to
allow light and space into the world, but
the kinder proposal of Tne is accepted

and instead the primordial pair are forced

apart. Tmatauenga thinks about the
actions of Tne in separating their
parents, and makes snares to catch the
birds, the children of Tne, who can no
longer fly free. He then makes nets, and
traps the children of Tangaroa. He makes
hoes to dig the ground, capturing his
brothers Rongo and Haumia-tiketike,
heaping them into baskets to be eaten.
The only brother that Tmatauenga
cannot subdue completely is
Twhirimtea, whose storms and
hurricanes attack humankind to this day
because of his indignation at the actions
of his brothers (Grey 1971:7-10).
Although Rangi and Papa were not human
in form, Tmatauenga and his brothers
were. Humankind - the descendants of T
- increased upon the earth, until the
generation of Mui and his brothers (Grey
1956:8-11, Tregear 1891:540).

Tmatauenga's actions provide a pattern

for human activities. Because
Tmatauenga defeated his brothers,
people can now, if they perform the
appropriate rituals, kill and eat birds (the
children of Tne), fish (the children of
Tangaroa), cultivate and harvest food
plants (the children of Rongo and Haumiatiketike), and generally harness the
resources of the natural world.
Tmatauenga is also the originator of
warfare, and people make war now
because Tmatauenga provided the
example. When rituals were performed
over warriors before a battle, or when an
infant was dedicated to a future role as a
fighter, Tmatauenga was invoked as the
source of their duty. The body of the first
warrior to fall in a battle was often offered
up to Tmatauenga. While Tmatauenga
is the origin of war, powerful local deities
such as Kahukura, Maru or Uenuku were
also called upon in time of war (Orbell
1998:185-186).

2. Twhirimtea
In Mori mythology, Twhirimtea (or
Twhiri) is the god of weather, including
thunder and lightning, wind, clouds and
storms. He is a son of Papatnuku (earth
mother) and Ranginui (sky father). In his
anger at his brothers for separating their
parents, Twhirimtea destroyed the forests
of Tne (god of forests), drove Tangaroa (god
of the sea) and his progeny into the sea,
pursued Rongo and Haumia-tiketike till they
had to take refuge in the bosom of their
mother Papa, and only found in
Tmatauenga a worthy opponent and eternal
enemy (Tregear 1891:499). To fight his
brothers, Twhirimtea gathered an army of
his children, winds and clouds of different
kinds - including Ap-hau ("fierce squall"),
Ap-matangi, Ao-nui, Ao-roa, Ao-puri, Aoptango, Ao-whtuma, Ao-whekere, Aokhiwahiwa, Ao-knapanapa, Ao-pkinakina,
Ao-pakarea, and Ao-tkawe (Grey 1971).
Grey translates these as 'fierce squalls,
whirlwinds, dense clouds, massy clouds, dark
clouds, gloomy thick clouds, fiery clouds,
clouds which preceded hurricanes, clouds of
fiery black, clouds reflecting glowing red
light, clouds wildly drifting from all quarters
and wildly bursting, clouds of thunder
storms, and clouds hurriedly flying on' (Grey
1956:5).
Other children of Twhirimtea are the
various kinds of rain, mists and fog.
Twhirimtea's attacks on his brothers led to
the flooding of large areas of the land. The
names of the beings involved in this flooding
include Ua-nui (terrible rain), Ua-roa (longcontinued rain), Ua-whatu (fierce hailstorms),
and Ua-nganga (sleet); after these, their
children in turn took up the fight: Haumaringi (mist), Hau-marotoroto (heavy dew),
and Tmairangi (light mist) (Grey 1956:1011, Grey 1971:5). Tregear mentions Haumaringiringi as a personification of mists
(Tregear 1891:54).
Twhirimtea live on the sky with his father
Rangi and brother, star Rehua.

3. Tangaroa
In Mori mythology, Tangaroa (also Takaroa)
is one of the great gods, the god of the sea.
He is a son of Ranginui and Papatuanuku,
Sky and Earth. After he joins his brothers
Rongo, Tmatauenga, Haumia, and Tane in
the forcible separation of their parents, he is
attacked by his brother Tawhirimatea, the
god of storms, and forced to hide in the sea.
[1] Tangaroa is the father of many sea
creatures. Tangaroa's son, Punga, has two
children, Ikatere, the ancestor of fish, and Tute-wehiwehi (or Tu-te-wanawana), the
ancestor of reptiles. Terrified by
Tawhirimateas onslaught, the fish seek
shelter in the sea, and the reptiles in the
forests. Ever since, Tangaroa has held a
grudge with Tne, the god of forests,
because he offers refuge to his runaway
children (Grey 1971:15).

The contention between Tangaroa and Tne,

the father of birds, trees, and humans, is an
indication that the Mori thought of the
ocean and the land as opposed realms.
When people go out to sea to fish or to
travel, they are in effect representatives of

Tne entering the realm of Tne's enemy. For

this reason, it was important that offerings
were made to Tangaroa before any such
expedition (Orbell 1998:146-147).

Another version of the origin of Tangaroa

maintains that he is the son of Temoretu, and
that Papa is his wife. Papa commits adultery
with Rangi while Tangaroa is away, and in the
resulting battle Tangaroas spear pierces
Rangi through both his thighs. Papa then
marries Rangi (White 18871891, I:22-23).

In another legend, Tangaroa marries Te Anumatao (chilling cold). They are the parents of
the gods of the fish class, including Te
Whata-uira-a-Tangawa, Te Whatukura,
Poutini, and Te Pounamu (Shortland
1882:17). In some versions, Tangaroa has a
son, Tinirau, and nine daughters (1891:463).
As Tangaroa-whakamau-tai he exercises
control over the tides.

In the South Island, his name can take the

form Takaroa.