Legends Of Ma-ui-a Demi God Of Polynesia, And Of His Mother Hina Part 5

Maui pulled the first noose, but it slipped down the rising sun until it caught and was pulled tight around his feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hale-a-ka-la Crater. Where the Sun Was Caught.]

Maui ran quickly to pull the ropes of the second snare, but that also slipped down, down, until it was tightened around the knees. Then Maui hastened to the third snare, while the sun was trying to rush along on his journey. The third snare caught around the hips. The fourth snare fastened itself around the waist. The fifth slipped under the arms, and yet the sun sped along as if but little inconvenienced by Maui's efforts.

Then Maui caught the last noose and threw it around the neck of the sun, and fastened the rope to a spur of rock. The sun struggled until nearly strangled to death and then gave up, promising Maui that he would go as slowly as was desired. Maui left the snares fastened to the sun to keep him in constant fear.

"These ropes may still be seen hanging from the sun at dawn and stretching into the skies when he descends into the ocean at night. By the a.s.sistance of these ropes he is gently let down into Ava-iki in the evening, and also raised up out of shadow-land in the morning."

Another legend from the Society Islands is related by Mr. Gill:

Maui tried many snares before he could catch the sun. The sun was the Hercules, or the Samson, of the heavens. He broke the strong cords of cocoanut fibre which Maui made and placed around the opening by which the sun climbed out from the under-world. Maui made stronger ropes, but still the sun broke them every one.

Then Maui thought of his sister's hair, the sister Inaika, whom he cruelly treated in later years. Her hair was long and beautiful. He cut off some of it and made a strong rope. With this he la.s.soed or rather snared the sun, and caught him around the throat. The sun quickly promised to be more thoughtful of the needs of men and go at a more reasonable pace across the sky.

A story from the American Indians is told in Hawaii's Young People, which is very similar to the Polynesian legends.

An Indian boy became very angry with the sun for getting so warm and making his clothes shrink with the heat. He told his sister to make a snare. The girl took sinews from a large deer, but they shriveled under the heat. She took her own long hair and made snares, but they were burned in a moment. Then she tried the fibres of various plants and was successful. Her brother took the fibre cord and drew it through his lips. It stretched and became a strong red cord. He pulled and it became very long. He went to the place of sunrise, fixed his snare, and caught the sun. When the sun had been sufficiently punished, the animals of the earth studied the problem of setting the sun free. At last a mouse as large as a mountain ran and gnawed the red cord. It broke and the sun moved on, but the poor mouse had been burned and shriveled into the small mouse of the present day.

A Samoan legend says that a woman living for a time with the sun bore a child who had the name "Child of the Sun." She wanted gifts for the child's marriage, so she took a long vine, climbed a tree, made the vine into a noose, la.s.soed the sun, and made him give her a basket of blessings.

In Fiji, the natives tie the gra.s.ses growing on a hilltop over which they are pa.s.sing, when traveling from place to place. They do this to make a snare to catch the sun if he should try to go down before they reach the end of their day's journey.

This legend is a misty memory of some time when the Polynesian people were in contact with the short days of the extreme north or south. It is a very remarkable exposition of a fact of nature perpetuated many centuries in lands absolutely free from such natural phenomena.

V.

MAUI FINDING FIRE.

"Grant, oh grant me thy hidden fire, O Banyan Tree.

Perform an incantation, Utter a prayer To the Banyan Tree.

Kindle a fire in the dust Of the Banyan Tree."

--Translation of ancient Polynesian chant.

Among students of mythology certain characters in the legends of the various nations are known as "culture heroes." Mankind has from time to time learned exceedingly useful lessons and has also usually ascribed the new knowledge to some noted person in the national mythology. These mythical benefactors who have brought these practical benefits to men are placed among the "hero-G.o.ds." They have been teachers or "culture heroes" to mankind.

Probably the fire finders of the different nations are among the best remembered of all these benefactors. This would naturally be the case, for no greater good has touched man's physical life than the discovery of methods of making fire.

Prometheus, the cla.s.sical fire finder, is most widely known in literature. But of all the helpful G.o.ds of mythology, Maui, the mischievous Polynesian, is beyond question the hero of the largest numbers of nations scattered over the widest extent of territory.

Prometheus belonged to Rome, but Maui belonged to the length and breadth of the Pacific Ocean. Theft or trickery, the use of deceit of some kind, is almost inseparably connected with fire finding all over the world.

Prometheus stole fire from Jupiter and gave it to men together with the genius to make use of it in the arts and sciences. He found the rolling chariot of the sun, secretly filled his hollow staff with fire, carried it to earth, put a part in the breast of man to create enthusiasm or animation, and saved the remainder for the comfort of mankind to be used with the artist skill of Minerva and Vulcan. In Brittany the golden or fire-crested wren steals fire and is red-marked while so doing. The animals of the North American Indians are represented as stealing fire sometimes from the cuttle fish and sometimes from one another. Some swiftly-flying bird or fleet-footed coyote would carry the stolen fire to the home of the tribe.

The possession of fire meant to the ancients all that wealth means to the family of today. It meant the possession of comfort. The G.o.ds were naturally determined to keep this wealth in their own hands. For any one to make a sharp deal and cheat a G.o.d of fire out of a part of this valuable property or to make a courageous raid upon the fire guardian and steal the treasure, was easily sufficient to make that one a "culture hero." As a matter of fact a prehistoric family without fire would go to any length in order to get it. The fire finders would naturally be the hero-G.o.ds and stealing fire would be an exploit rather than a crime.

It is worth noting that in many myths not only was fire stolen, but birds marked by red or black spots among their feathers were a.s.sociated with the theft.

It would naturally be supposed that the Hawaiians living in a volcanic country with ever-flowing fountains of lava, would connect their fire myths with some volcano when relating the story of the origin of fire.

But like the rest of the Polynesians, they found fire in trees rather than in rivers of melted rock. They must have brought their fire legends and fire customs with them when they came to the islands of active volcanoes.

Flint rocks as fire producers are not found in the Hawaiian myths, nor in the stories from the island groups related to the Hawaiians. Indians might see the fleeing buffalo strike fire from the stones under his hard hoofs. The Tartars might have a G.o.d to teach them "the secret of the stone's edge and the iron's hardness." The Peruvians could very easily form a legend of their mythical father Guamansuri finding a way to make fire after he had seen the sling stones, thrown at his enemies, bring forth sparks of fire from the rocks against which they struck. The thunder and the lightning of later years were the sparks and the crash of stones hurled among the cloud mountains by the mighty G.o.ds.

In Australia the story is told of an old man and his daughter who lived in great darkness. After a time the father found the doorway of light through which the sun pa.s.sed on his journey. He opened the door and a flood of suns.h.i.+ne covered the earth. His daughter looked around her home and saw numbers of serpents. She seized a staff and began to kill them.

She wielded it so vigorously that it became hot in her hands. At last it broke, but the pieces rubbed against each other and flashed into sparks and flames. Thus it was learned that fire was buried in wood.

Flints were known in Europe and Asia and America, but the Polynesian looked to the banyan and kindred trees for the hidden sparks of fire.

The natives of De Peyster's Island say that their ancestors learned how to make fire by seeing smoke rise from crossed branches rubbing together while trees were shaken by fierce winds.

In studying the Maui myths of the Pacific it is necessary to remember that Polynesians use "t" and "k" without distinguis.h.i.+ng them apart, and also as in the Hawaiian Islands an apostrophe (') is often used in place of "t" or "k". Therefore the Maui Ki-i-k-i'i of Hawaii becomes the demi-G.o.d Tiki-tiki of the Gilbert Islands--or the Ti'i-ti'i of Samoa or the Tiki of New Zealand--or other islands of the great ocean. We must also remember that in the Hawaiian legends Kalana is Maui's father. This in other groups becomes Talanga or Kalanga or Karanga. Ka.n.a.loa, the great G.o.d of most of the different Polynesians, is also sometimes called the Father of Maui. It is not strange that some of the exploits usually ascribed to Maui should be in some places transferred to his father under one name or the other. On one or two groups Mafuia, an ancestress of Maui, is mentioned as finding the fire. The usual legend makes Maui the one who takes fire away from Mafuia. The story of fire finding in Polynesia sifts itself to Maui under one of his widely-accepted names, or to his father or to his ancestress--with but very few exceptions.

This fact is important as showing in a very marked manner the race relations.h.i.+p of a vast number of the islanders of the Pacific world.

From the Marshall Islands, in the west, to the Society Islands of the east; from the Hawaiian Islands in the north to the New Zealand group in the south, the footsteps of Maui the fire finder can be traced.

The Hawaiian story of fire finding is one of the least marvelous of all the legends. Hina, Maui's mother, wanted fish. One morning early Maui saw that the great storm waves of the sea had died down and the fis.h.i.+ng grounds could be easily reached. He awakened his brothers and with them hastened to the beach. This was at Kaupo on the island of Maui. Out into the gray shadows of the dawn they paddled. When they were far from sh.o.r.e they began to fish. But Maui, looking landward, saw a fire on the mountain side.

"Behold," he cried. "There is a fire burning. Whose can this fire be?"

"Whose, indeed?" his brothers replied.

"Let us hasten to the sh.o.r.e and cook our food," said one.

They decided that they had better catch some fish to cook before they returned. Thus, in the morning, before the hot sun drove the fish deep down to the dark recesses of the sea, they fished until a bountiful supply lay in the bottom of the canoe.

When they came to land, Maui leaped out and ran up the mountain side to get the fire. For a long, long time they had been without fire. The great volcano Haleakala above them had become extinct--and they had lost the coals they had tried to keep alive. They had eaten fruits and uncooked roots and the sh.e.l.l fish broken from the reef--and sometimes the great raw fish from the far-out ocean. But now they hoped to gain living fire and cooked food.

But when Maui rushed up toward the cloudy pillar of smoke he saw a family of birds scratching the fire out. Their work was finished and they flew away just as he reached the place.

Maui and his brothers watched for fire day after day--but the birds, the curly-tailed Alae (or the mud-hens) made no fire. Finally the brothers went fis.h.i.+ng once more--but when they looked toward the mountain, again they saw flames and smoke. Thus it happened to them again and again.

Maui proposed to his brothers that they go fis.h.i.+ng leaving him to watch the birds. But the Alae counted the fishermen and refused to build a fire for the hidden one who was watching them. They said among themselves, "Three are in the boat and we know not where the other one is, we will make no fire today."

So the experiment failed again and again. If one or two remained or if all waited on the land there would be no fire--but the dawn which saw the four brothers in the boat, saw also the fire on the land.

Finally Maui rolled some kapa cloth together and stuck it up in one end of the canoe so that it would look like a man. He then concealed himself near the haunt of the mud-hens, while his brothers went out fis.h.i.+ng. The birds counted the figures in the boat and then started to build a heap of wood for the fire.

Maui was impatient--and just as the old Alae began to select sticks with which to make the flames he leaped swiftly out and caught her and held her prisoner. He forgot for a moment that he wanted the secret of fire making. In his anger against the wise bird his first impulse was to taunt her and then kill her for hiding the secret of fire.

But the Alae cried out: "If you are the death of me--my secret will perish also--and you cannot have fire."

Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.

Then came the contest of wits. The bird told the demi-G.o.d to rub the stalks of water plants together. He guarded the bird and tried the plants. Water instead of fire ran out of the twisted stems. Then she told him to rub reeds together--but they bent and broke and could make no fire. He twisted her neck until she was half dead--then she cried out: "I have hidden the fire in a green stick."

Maui worked hard, but not a spark of fire appeared. Again he caught his prisoner by the head and wrung her neck, and she named a kind of dry wood. Maui rubbed the sticks together, but they only became warm. The neck twisting process was resumed--and repeated again and again, until the mud-hen was almost dead--and Maui had tried tree after tree. At last Maui found fire. Then as the flames rose he said: "There is one more thing to rub." He took a fire stick and rubbed the top of the head of his prisoner until the feathers fell off and the raw flesh appeared.

Thus the Hawaiian mud-hen and her descendants have ever since had bald heads, and the Hawaiians have had the secret of fire making.