How Maui Found His Mothers Home

Maui was a devious child who got up to many tricks, according to legend, Maui’s Mother had her home underwater, as well as on land with her children.

Maui was determined to find the hidden dwelling place.

His Mother would meet the children in the evening and lie down to sleep with them, and disappear with the first appearance of dawn.

One day Maui asked his brothers to tell him the place where their father and mother dwelt, he begged earnestly that they would make this known to him in order that he might go and visit the place where the two old people dwelt.

They replied to him, “We don’t know, how can we tell whether they dwell above the Earth, or down under the Earth, or at a distance from up.”

Then he answered them, “Never mind, I think I’ll find them out”.

His brothers replied, “Nonsense, how can you tell where they are, you, the last born of all of us, when we, your elders have no knowledge where they are concealed from us”.

“After you first appeared to us, and made yourself known to us and to our Mother as our brother, you know that our Mother used to come and sleep with us every night”.

“As soon as the day broke she was gone, and, lo, there was nobody but ourselves sleeping in the house, and this took place night after night, and how can we tell then where she went or where she lives?”.

But he answered, “Very well, you stop here and listen, by and by you will hear news of me”.

For he had found out something after he was discovered by his Mother, by his relations, and by his brothers.

When it was night their mother slept with them, but early in the morning Taranga rose up, and suddenly, in a moment of time, she was gone from the house where her children were.

As soon as they woke up they looked all about to no purpose, as they could not see her, the elder brothers knew that she had left them, and were accustomed to it, but the little child was exceedingly vexed, yet he thought, ‘I can not see her, it is true, but perhaps she has only gone to prepare some food for us,

No, no, she was off, far, far away.

Now, at nightfall when their mother came back to them, her children were dancing and singing as usual.

As soon as they had finished, she called to her last born, “Come here, my child, let us sleep together”

So the slept together, but as soon as day dawned, she disappeared, the little fellow now felt quite suspicious at such strange proceedings on the part of his mother every morning.

But, at last, upon another night, as he slept again with his mother, the rest of the brothers that night also sleeping with them, the little fellow crept out in the night and stole his mother's apron, her belt, and clothes, and hid them.

Then he went and stopped up every crevice in the wooden window, and in the doorway, so that the light of dawn might not shine into the house, and make his mother hurry to get up.

But, after he had done this, his little heart still felt very anxious and uneasy lest his mother should, in her impatience, rise in the darkness and defeat his plans.

The night dragged its slow length along without his mother moving, at last, there came the faint light of early dawn, so that at one end of the longhouse you could see the legs of the people sleeping at the other end of it.

Still, his mother slept on, then the sun rose up, and mounted far above the horizon, now, at last, his mother moved, and began to think to herself, ”What kind of night can this be, to last so long”, and having thought thus, she dropped asleep again.

Again she woke, and began to think to herself, but could not tell that it was broad daylight outside, as the window and every chink in the house were stopped closely up.

At last, up she jumped, and finding herself quite naked, began to look for her clothes and apron, but she could find neither.

Then she ran and pulled out the things with which the chinks in the windows and doors were stopped up, and while doing so,

Oh, dear, Oh dear, there she saw the sun high up in the Heavens, then she snatched up, as she ran off, the old clout of a flax cloak, with which the door of the house had been stopped up.

She carried it off as her only covering, getting, at last, outside the house, she hurried away, and ran crying at the thought of having been so badly treated by her own children.

As soon as his mother got outside the house, little Maui jumped up, and kneeling upon his hands and knees peeped after her through the doorway into the bright light.

Whilst he was watching her, the old woman reached down to a tuft of rushes, and snatching it up from the ground, dropped into a hole underneath it, and clapping the tuft of rushes in the hole again, as if it were its covering, and so disappeared.

Then little Maui jumped on his feet, and as hard as he could go, ran out of the house, pulled up the tuft of reeds, and peeping down, discovered a beautiful open cave running quite deep into the earth.

He covered up the hole again and returned to the house, and waking up his brothers who were still sleeping, said, “Come, Come, my brothers, rouse up, you have slept long enough, come get up, here we are again cajoled by our mother”.

Then his brothers made haste and got up, Alas, alas, the sun was quite high in the heavens.

The little Maui now asked his brothers again, “Where do you think the place is where our father and mother dwell?”, and they answered.

“How should we know, we have never seen it, although we are Maui-taha, and Maui-roto, and Maui-pae, and Maui-waho, we have never seen the place, and do you think you can find that place which you are so anxious to see?”.

“What does it signify to you? Cannot you stop quietly with us?”.

“What do we care about our father or about our mother”.

“Did she feed us with food till we grew up to be men?”.

“Not a bit of it”.

“Why, without doubt, Rangi, or the Heaven, is our father, who kindly sent his offspring down to us, Hau-whenua, or gentle breezes, to cool the earth and young plants”.

“Hau-na-ringiringi, or mists. to moisten them, and Hau-ma-roto-roto, or fine weather, to make them grow, and Touarangi, or rain, to water them, and Tomairangi, or dews, to nourish them”.

“He gave these his offspring to cause our food to grow, and then Papa-tu-a-nuku, or the earth, made her seed spring, and grow forth, and provide substance for her children in this long continuing world”.

Little Maui then answered, “What you say is truly correct, but such thoughts and sayings would better become me than you, for in the foaming bubbles of the sea I was nursed and fed”.

“It would please me better if you were to think it over and remember the time when you were nursed at your mother's breast, it could not have been until after you ceased to be nourished by her milk that you could have eaten the kinds of food you have mentioned”.

“As for me, Oh, my brothers, I have never partaken either of her milk or of her food, yet I love her, for this single reason alone, that I lay in her womb, and because I love her, I wish to know where is the place where she and my father dwell”.

His brothers felt quite surprised and pleased with their little brother when they heard him talk in this way, and when after a little time they had recovered from their amazement, they told him to try and find their father and mother.

So he said he would go.

It was a long time ago that he had finished his first labour, for when he first appeared to his relatives in their house of singing and dancing, he had on that occasion transformed himself into the likeness of all manner of birds, of every bird in the world, and yet no single form that he then assumed had pleased his brothers.

But now when he transformed into the semblance of a pigeon, his brothers said. “Ah, now indeed, Oh brother, you look very well indeed, very beautiful, very beautiful, much more beautiful than you looked in any of the other forms which you assumed, and then changed from, when you first discovered yourself to us”.

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What made him now look so well in the shape he had assumed was the belt of his mother, and her apron, which he had stolen while she was asleep in the house.

For the very thing which looked so white upon the breast of the pigeon was his mother's broad belt, and he also had on her little apron of burnished hair from the tail of a dog,

The fastening of her belt was what formed the beautiful black feathers on his throat.

He had once changed himself into this form a long time ago, and now that he was going to look for his father and mother, and had quitted his brothers to transform himself into the likeness of a pigeon.

He assumed exactly the same form as on the previous occasion, and when his brothers saw him thus again, they said, “Oh, brother, Oh, brother, you do really look well indeed”.

When he sat upon the bough of a tree, Oh. Dear, he never moved, or jumped about from spray to spray, but sat quite still, cooing to himself, so that no one who had seen could have helped thinking of the proverb,

’A stupid pigeon sits on one bough, and jumps not from spray to spray’.

Early the next morning, he said to his brothers, as was first stated, “Now you remain here, and you will hear something of me after I am gone, it is my great love for my parents that leads me to search for them”.

“Now listen to me, and say whether or not my recent feats were not remarkable.”

“For the feat of transforming oneself into birds can only be accomplished by a man who is skilled in magic, and yet here I, the youngest of you all, have assumed the form of all birds.

“Now, perhaps, after all, I shall quite lose my art and become old and weakened in the long journey to the place where I am going”.

His brothers answered him thus, “That might be indeed, if you were going upon a warlike expedition, but, in truth, you are only going to look for those parents whom we all long to see, and if they are found by you, we shall ever dwell happily, our present sorrow will be ended, and we shall continually pass backwards and forwards between our dwelling place and theirs, paying them happy visits”.

He answered them, “It is certainly a very good cause which leads me to undertake this journey, and if, when I reach the place I am going to, I find everything agreeable and nice, then I shall, perhaps, be pleased with it, but if I find it a bad, disagreeable place, I shall be disgusted with it”.

They replied to him, “What you say is exceedingly true, depart then upon your journey, with your great knowledge and skill in magic”
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Then their brother went into the wood, and came back to them again, looking as if he were a real pigeon.

His brothers were quite delighted, and they had no power left to do anything but admire him.

Then off he flew, until he came to the cave which his mother had run down into, and he lifted up the tuft of rushes, then down he went, and disappeared in the cave, and shut up its mouth again so as to hide the entrance.

Away he flew very fast indeed, and twice he dipped his wing, because the cave was narrow, soon he reached nearly to the bottom of the cave, and he flew along it, and again, because the cave was so narrow, he dips first one wing and then the other.

The cave now widened, and he dashed straight on.

At last, he saw a party of people coming along under a grove of trees, they were Manapau trees, and flying on, he perched upon the top of one of these trees, under which the people had seated

When he saw his mother lying down on the grass by the side of her husband, he guessed at once who they were, and he thought, ‘Ah, there sits my father and mother right under me’.

He soon heard their names, as they were called to by their friends who were sitting with them,

Then the pigeon hopped down, and perched on another spray a little lower, and it pecked off one of the berries of the tree and dropped it gently down, and hit the father with it on the forehead.

Some of the party said. “Was it a bird which threw that down?”

The father said, “Oh no, it was only a berry that fell by chance”.

Then the pigeon again pecked off some of the berries from the tree, and threw them down with all its force, and struck both father and mother, so that he really hurt them, then they cried out, and the whole party jumped up and looked into the tree.

As the pigeon began to coo, they soon found out from the noise, where it was sitting amongst the leaves and branches, and the whole of them, the chiefs and common people alike, caught up stones to pelt the pigeon with.

They threw for a very long time, without hitting it, at last, the father tried to throw up at it.

Ah, he struck it, but Maui had himself contrived that he should be struck by the stone which his father threw, for Maui had himself contrived that he should be struck by the stone that his father threw, for, but by his own choice, no one could have hit him.

He was struck exactly upon his left leg, and down he fell, and as he lay fluttering and struggling upon the ground, they all ran to catch him, but Lo, the pigeon had turned into a man.

Then all who saw him were frightened at his fierce glaring eyes, which were red as if painted with red ochre, and they said, “Oh, it is no wonder that he so long sat still up in the tree, had he been a bird he would have flown off long before, but he is a man.”

Some of them said, “No, indeed, rather a god. “Just look at his form and appearance, the like has never been seen before, since Rangi and Papa-tu-a-nuku were torn apart”.

Then Taranga said, “I used to see one who looked like this person every night when I went to visit my children, but what I saw then excelled what I see now, just listen to me”.

“Once as I was wandering upon the seashore, I prematurely gave birth to one of my children, and I cut off the long tresses of my hair, and bound him up in them”.

“Then I threw him into the foam of the sea, and after that, he was found by his ancestor, Tama-nuii-ki-te-Rangi, and then she told his history nearly in the same words that Maui-the-infant had told it to herself and his brothers in their house.

Having finished his history, Taranga ended her discourse to her husband and his friends.

Then his mother asked Maui, who was sitting near her, “Where do you come from?”

“From the westward?” and he answered, “No”.

“From the North-east then?” “No”.

“From the south-east then?” “No”.

“From the south then?” “No”.

“Was it the wind which blows upon me, which brought you here to me then?”

When she asked this, he opened his mouth and answered, “Yes”

And she cried out, “Oh, this then is indeed my child”, and she said, “Are you Maui-taha?”. he answered “No”.

Then said she, “Are you Maui-tiki tiki-o-Taranga?, and he answered “Yes”.

She cried aloud, “This is, indeed, my child”.

“By the winds and storms and wave uplifting gales he was fashioned and became a human being”,

“Welcome, oh my child, welcome, you shall climb the threshold of the house of your great ancestor Hine-nui-te-po, and death shall thenceforth have no power over man”.

Then the lad was taken by his father to the water, to be baptized, and after the ceremony prayers were offered to make him sacred, and clean from all impurities, but when it was completed, his father Makea-tu-tara felt greatly alarmed, because he remembered that had, from mistake, hurriedly skipped over part of the prayers of the baptismal service, and of the services to purify Maui, he knew the gods would be certain to punish this fault, by causing Maui to die, and his alarm and anxiety were therefore extreme.

At night fall they all went into his house.

[Info from](Sir George Grey, 3rd Governor of New Zealand. November 1854 to January 1854, and December 1861 to February 1868, 11th Premier of New Zealand, October 1877 to 1879)

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/myths-and-legends-of-new-zealand-intro

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/children-of-heaven-and-earth-how-the-heavens-were-separated-from-the-earth

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/children-of-heaven-and-earth-part-2

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-this-series-began

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-origins-of-maui-how-he-came-home-part-1

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