The story of Maui is probably the best known of all Polynesian myths and legends. Maui is a demigod, a hero, who is also a trickster, always up to mischief with little regard for social conventions or the right way to behave. His exploits evoke laughter, or sometimes anger and indignation, but at the end his pranks always result in some benefit to mankind.

Maui is credited with such feats as lifting the sky up to its present height, fishing up solid land from the vast ocean that covers the world, and making the sun go slowly in the sky so people have enough daylight to do all that they need to do in a day. Maui is also the one who gave mankind the secret of Fire, which he obtained from his ancestress Mahuika through trickery and guile. 

Among the Maori people of New Zealand is found the most comprehensive and complete version of the Maui myth.

Maui’s Birth

Taranga’s child was born early, before his time.
He was born by the seashore.

Taranga was afraid of this early birth, of this child who had come into the world before he was fully formed. So she cut off a tuft of her hair and wrapped her baby in it, and then she threw him into the surf, and gave him to the waves, to Tangaroa the Ocean.

Tangaroa took the newborn child. The seaweed folded about him, and rocked him from side to side, and the breezes that blew carried him back to land, till Tangaroa gave the child up to the sandy shore.  There the jellyfish found him, and rolled themselves around him, so that he might be safe. But the flies buzzed round him, and the birds gathered round him waiting for him to die. And the child lay on the sandy beach.

Till the old man Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi saw the flies and the birds collected in clusters round the jellyfish. And the old man ran as fast as he could, and stripped off the jellyfish, and found the child within. Then Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi took the child home, and hung him up in the roof of his house so that the child might feel the warm smoke and the heat of the fire.

So the child was saved by the kindness of Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi, the wise one.

Maui Finds His Family

Many seasons passed and the baby grew into a child. The child was clever, and now knew as much magic of the earth and the sky as did the wise old Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi.

Then one day Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi said to the child, ‘Go, go find your family. Your time with me has ended.’

So he left Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi.

He travelled all day and all night, and when the land was too difficult to cross, he turned into a bird and flew. In this way he at last found his mother, his relations, and his brothers, one night when they were all dancing in the Great House of Assembly.

The little child crept into the Great House of Assembly, and there were his four brothers, sitting. He crept behind them and sat down with them, so that when their mother Taranga came to get her children for the dance, she found one more. She said to her sons, ‘One, that’s Maui-taha; two – that’s Maui-roto; three- that’s Maui-pae; four – that’s Maui-waho.’   And then she saw another little one.

‘Another one!’ said Taranga. ‘Where has this fifth one come from?’ she asked.

Then the little child said, ‘I’m your child too. I’m Maui-the-baby.’

Then Taranga counted them all over again, ‘Maui-taha, Maui-roto, Maui-pae, Maui-waho. That’s all. That’s four. There should be only four of you. Who is this fifth one? Who are you?’

But little Maui said again, ‘I’m your child too. I am Maui-the-baby.’

Now Taranga got angry. ‘Come – you are no child of mine. You must belong to someone else. Leave this house at once!’

Then little Maui said, ‘Very well. I will leave if you say so. But I must be your child. I was born by the seashore, and you threw me, wrapped in your hair, into the waves. And Tangaroa looked after me, the seaweed rocked me, and the breezes blew me to shore, and Tame-nui-ke-ti-Rangi took me to his house and hung me up in the roof so I would stay warm. And then I grew and heard of this Great House and came to find you. I know my brothers from the time I was inside you.’ And little Maui recited all the names of his brothers. ‘This is Maui-taha, and this is Maui-roto, and this is Maui-pae, and this is Maui-waho. And I am Maui-the-baby.’

When Taranga heard him talk like this, she believed him, and she opened her arms to him and held him. ‘You are my son, my little son, my last-born child,’ she cried. And she called him Maui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, which means ‘Maui-formed-in-the-topknot-of Taranga’.  And from then on that was his name.

Now Taranga called to Maui and said, ‘Come my little child, come sleep with me, your mother, so that I may kiss you and cuddle you.’ And little Maui ran to his mother and slept with her at night.

When the older brothers saw this they were jealous. ‘Our mother never calls us to sleep with her,’ they said. ‘We are the children she has seen growing up, but never has she called to us to sleep with her so that she may cuddle us. So why is she calling this little stranger, who may not even be her child?’

But the two eldest ones said, ‘Never mind, if our mother calls him to her. Let us be kind to him, and let him be our little brother. It is better to be kind and to share all we have than to fight amongst us. So let us be kind to the little fellow, and let him be our little brother.’

The other brothers heard this, and agreed that it was better to be kind than to fight. ‘Yes, yes, you are right,’ they said. ‘Let our jealousy finish here.’

And so the brothers of little Maui looked upon him as their little brother.

So Maui found his mother and his brothers.

That night, little Maui slept cuddled up with his mother, Taranga. But in the morning, very early, up rose Taranga, and went away before her children were awake.  The five boys woke up and looked all around, but they could not see her.

The four elder brothers were used to this, so they didn’t bother. But little Maui was very unhappy. ‘I can’t see her anywhere,’ he said. ‘Maybe she has gone to make some food for us,’ he thought. But Taranga had gone, far away.

When night fell, Taranga came back. Once again she called to little Maui, ‘Come my child, come sleep with me tonight.’ So Maui cuddled up with his mother and went to sleep. But when he woke up in the morning, his mother had disappeared again. Little Maui was very unhappy again.

This kept happening for some time – every night Taranga would come back to her children, and in the morning, she would vanish. At last, little Maui decided to find out where his mother went every morning.

So one night, as his mother slept and his four brothers slept as well, Maui woke up and stole his mother’s apron, and her belt and all her clothes and hid them. Then he shut the door and window tight, and blocked up every little crevice and chink, so that the light of the dawn could not get into the house and wake his mother.

Soon the morning came, but no light came into the house. Maui’s mother and his brothers slept on. The sun rose slowly in the sky, till it was bright daylight outside, and still his mother and his brothers slept on. Till at last his mother woke up and said to herself, ‘What kind of night is this that it does not end?’ Then she realised her clothes were gone, and jumping up started searching for her clothes, her apron, her belt. But she couldn’t find them. She saw that the door and window had been blocked up. So she ran and pulled out the things with which the door and window had been blocked up. And then she saw the sun was high in the sky and that it was broad daylight.

Then Taranga was deeply distressed. She pulled on an old cloak, and pulling open the door, ran out.

As soon as his mother ran out of the house, Maui jumped up and peeped out through the door of the house. He saw his mother reaching down and pulling up a tuft of grass, and then dropping down into a hole underneath it. She clapped the tuft of grass back into the hole, as though it were a lid, and vanished.  Maui ran to the spot where she had disappeared and pulled up the same tuft of grass. Peering into the hole that opened, he saw a long underground passage running deep into the earth.

Maui ran back to the house and woke up his brothers. ‘Wake up, wake up,’ he called. ‘See, our mother has disappeared again.’ And he told them all about the hole in the grass that Taranga had vanished into. ‘Where do you think our mother and our father live?’ little Maui then asked his brothers.

‘How can we know, we’ve never seen it,’ answered the older brothers. ‘And why should we care? And why should you care? We are happy here. Can you not be happy here with us?’

But little Maui was not happy. He wanted to know where his mother and his father lived.

‘Well, then, you will have to go and try to find our mother and our father,’ said the brothers.

So Maui used all the magic he had learnt and turned himself into a beautiful pigeon. Then off he flew, into the long underground passage into which his mother had gone. On flew Maui the Pigeon, on and on. Sometimes the passage became very narrow, and sometimes it was wide and beautiful. But at last, in the distance, he saw a grove of manapau trees and under these trees some people.

Maui flew straight on, till he came to the grove. He perched on the tree under which the people sat. And there he saw his mother, with a man who was his father. The other people called to them by name, and then Maui was sure he had found his mother and his father.

So he hopped down lower, and with his beak, pecked off one of the berries that grew on the tree. He dropped the berry gently so that it struck his father. His father brushed it off. ‘It was nothing,’ he said. ‘Just a berry that fell by chance.’

Then Maui pecked off more berries and began throwing them down hard, so that they struck both his mother and his father. They looked up, and all the people jumped up, looking into the tree to see who was throwing the berries. And they saw Maui the Pigeon. Then the people began to pelt the pigeon with stones to make it fly away, but they couldn’t hit the pigeon.

Then Maui’s father picked up a stone and threw it at the pigeon. It struck him on the left leg and the pigeon fell down, fluttering and flapping. Now, Maui had wished that his father’s stone would hit him – so it had hit him. Otherwise no stone could have hit him.

The people ran to pick the fluttering bird up, but the bird changed into a boy. And the people were frightened. ‘No wonder he did not fly off,’ cried some of them. ‘It was a boy all along!’

‘No,’ said the others. ‘More likely a god – just look at him, we have never seen anyone look like him.’

‘I see one who looks like him every night that I visit my children,’ said Taranga. And then she told her friends and her husband the story of little Maui-the-baby.

 Then Taranga turned to Maui and asked him, ‘Where do you come from? From westward?’

 And Maui answered, ‘No.’

Then Taranga asked again, ‘From the northeast? From the southeast, then? From the south?’

And Maui answered, ‘No.’

Then Taranga asked, ‘Was it the wind that blows that brought you here then?’

And Maui answered, ‘Yes.’

‘This is indeed my child,’ cried Taranga. ‘Are you Maui-taha?’

‘No,’ said Maui.

‘Are you Maui-tikitiki-a-Taranga?’

‘Yes,’ answered Maui.

And Taranga embraced him and welcomed him. And Maui’s father, whose name was Makea-tu-tara welcomed him and took him to cleanse him from all impurities and perform the sacred rituals over him, so that the gods would keep Maui safe.

So Maui discovered where his mother and his father lived.