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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, June 16, 2005

TELL ME A STORY
Folk tales for families
How Maui pulled Aotearoa from the ocean bottom

Adapted by Amy Friedman

"Maui's Land Beneath the Sea" is a Maori legend from New Zealand.

Long ago there was a woman known as Taranga, who had many sons. Her youngest was Maui, who was a restless, playful child, and always a trickster, even when he grew to be a man. The villagers often grumbled about Maui, despite his many magical gifts.

One day Maui's brothers went out to fish, but Maui was napping. His children began to complain. "We're hungry," they said. "Why won't you fish too?"

Maui rolled over, but they shook him awake again. "Feed us!" they demanded.

Maui rose. "Wait, then! You'll see what I can catch, and you'll never complain again."

The next morning Maui took the jawbone he had won from his grandmother. This was the famed weapon that Maui had used to subdue the sun and to slow its course so people could enjoy its warmth.

Maui added mother-of-pearl shells and other enchanted ornaments to the jawbone, and attached a strong fishing line. Then he hurried to the shore, where his brothers were preparing their canoe.

"I'm coming with you," Maui called out.

"No, no," they cried. "Your magic always makes our lives too difficult." And before Maui could say another word, they paddled away.

That night, after his brothers had fallen asleep, he crept to the shore, climbed into the canoe and hid himself beneath its bottom boards.

The next morning, the brothers launched their canoe and paddled off. When they were a long way from shore, Maui leaped out.

"Oh no," the brothers wailed. "Maui can bring only trouble. Quick, paddle back home!"

But Maui began to chant one of his magical incantations, and suddenly the canoe was so far out to sea, no one could see the shore. "Which way is it?" they cried. Only Maui knew.

"Now you need me," Maui said, "and I promise to take you home after we have gone fishing."

The brothers had no choice, so they began to paddle, searching for good fishing grounds. When they saw fish swimming beneath their canoe, they cheered.

"We've found a fine spot to fish," said the eldest brother.

But Maui raised his hand. "Oh no, not here," he said. "Paddle farther out."

Fearing his next trick, the brothers paddled on.

After a while they grew weary and begged Maui to let them stop, but he refused, saying, "I know the perfect spot. You'll see. I'll take you to a place where, the moment you lower your hooks, fish will leap for them."

And so they paddled on as the sun rose higher and the sea grew deeper and darker. The brothers feared they would never again see their home.

At long last they reached the wide-open sea, and Maui said, "Now we will stop."

Relieved, the brothers lowered their hooks, and just as Maui had promised, the fish instantly leaped toward the hooks. Soon the canoe was brimming with fish, and still more leaped toward them. "This is wonderful," the eldest brother cried. "Now we can go home and feed our families for a long time."

"Be patient, brothers," Maui said. "I too wish to fish."

The brothers laughed. They could not imagine their lazy brother as a fisherman. Besides, he had no fishing hook.

But Maui pulled his magical hook from his clothing, and then, pricking himself, he drew blood and rubbed it on the hook as bait.

The hook sank, lower and lower. The men waited and waited. Suddenly Maui felt a tug as down beneath the sea a huge rock long hidden by the gods was caught in Maui's magic hook and line. When Maui pulled, the rock began to rise.

Maui's canoe rocked wildly. The brothers shrieked. But Maui kept pulling on his line, and began to chant his incantations.

Bubbles and foam appeared on the sea's surface, surrounding the canoe. The brothers wept.

Maui smiled and pulled harder, and on he chanted. The canoe rocked. Fish swam out of the way of whatever was rising.

The rock rose higher.

"Stop!" the brothers wailed, "who knows what monster you have caught?" But Maui pulled again, and Maui's magical fishing hook pulled up part of the Earth.

A moment later their canoe stopped rocking, for it was planted upon solid ground.

Astounded, the brothers fell silent. Maui looked sternly at them. "I must go and make our sacrifice to the gods in thanks for this gift," he said. "We shall give them a portion of our fish in exchange."

The brothers nodded.

"Do not touch our fish until I return," Maui said, and he hurried to offer his thanks to the gods.

The moment he was gone, the brothers, greedy and hungry, lunged at the fish and divided them among themselves.

The gods were furious. And so the fish beneath the brothers' feet began to thrash this way and that.

Now everyone knows that the land Maui lifted from the bottom of the sea is the island he called Aotearoa, or New Zealand, as later settlers named it. This island would have been a flat, smooth place if not for Maui's brothers and their greed. Even today it stands as it was made that day as the fish flopped, with steep peaks here and deep valleys there, fissures and crevasses, plains and hills, and one long cape that stretches out to sea, pointed with the piece of the jawbone that once belonged to Maui's grandmother.