Part 5 (2/2)

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.

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