Part 9 (1/2)
Maui came quickly and with mighty blows cut out a new channel for the river--the path it follows to this day. The waters sank and Hina remained unharmed in her cave.
The place where Kuna dwelt was called Wai-kuna--the Kuna water. The river in which Hina and Kuna dwelt bears the name Wailuku--”the destructive water.” Maui went above Kuna's home and poured hot water into the river. This part of the myth could easily have arisen from a lava outburst on the side of the volcano above the river. The hot water swept in a flood over Kuna's home. Kuna jumped from the boiling pools over a series of small falls near his home into the river below. Here the hot water again scalded him and in pain he leaped from the river to the bank, where Maui killed him by beating him with a club. His body was washed down the river over the falls under which Hina dwelt, into the ocean.
The story of Kuna or Tuna is a legend with a foundation in the enmity between two chiefs of the long ago, and also in a desire to explain the origin of the family of eels and the invention of nets and traps.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wailuku River--the Boiling Pots.]
VIII.
MAUI AND HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW.
The ”Stories of Maui's Brother-in-Law,” and of ”Maui seeking Immortality,” are not found in Hawaiian mythology. We depend upon Sir George Grey and John White for the New Zealand myths in which both of these legends occur.
Maui's sister Hina-uri married Ira-waru, who was willing to work with his skillful brother-in-law. They hunted in the forests and speared birds. They fished and farmed together. They pa.s.sed through many experiences similar to those Maui's own brothers had suffered before the brother-in-law took their place as Maui's companion. They made spears together--but Maui made notched barbs for his spear ends--and slipped them off when Ira-waru came near. So for a long time the proceeds of bird hunting fell to Maui. But after a time the brother-in-law learned the secret as the brothers had before, and Maui was looked up to by his fellow hunter as the skillful one. Sometimes Ira-waru was able to see at once Maui's plan and adopt it. He discovered Maui's method of making the punga or eel baskets for catching eels.
The two hunters went to the forest to find a certain creeping vine with which to weave their eel snares. Ira-waru made a basket with a hole, by which the eels could enter, but they could turn around and go out the same way. So he very seldom caught an eel. But Maui made his basket with a long funnel-shaped door, by which the eels could easily slide into the snare but could scarcely escape. He made a door in the side which he fastened tight until he wished to pour the eels out.
Ira-waru immediately made a basket like Maui. Then Maui became angry and uttered incantations over Ira-waru. The man dropped on the ground and became a dog. Maui returned home and met his sister, who charged him with sorcery concerning her husband.
Maui did not deny the exercise of his power, but taught his sister a chant and sent her out to the level country. There she uttered her chant and a strange dog with long hair came to her, barking and leaping around her. Then she knew what Maui had done. ”Thus Ira-waru became the first of the long-haired dogs whose flesh has been tabooed to women.”
The Tahu and Hau tribes of New Zealand tell a different story. They say that Maui went to visit Ira-waru. Together they set out on a journey.
After a time they rested by the wayside and became sleepy. Maui asked Ira-waru to cleanse his head. This gave him the restful, soothing touch which aided sleep. Then Maui proposed that Ira-waru sleep. Taking the head in his hands, Maui put his brother-in-law to sleep. Then by incantations he made the sleep very deep and prolonged. Meanwhile he pulled the ears and arms and limbs until they were properly lengthened.
He drew out the under jaw until it had the form of a dog's mouth. He stretched the end of the backbone into a tail, and then wakened Ira-waru and drove him back when he tried to follow the path to the settlement.
Hina-uri went out and called her husband. He came to her, leaping and barking. She decided that this was her husband, and in her agony reproached Maui and wandered away.
The Rua-nui story-tellers of New Zealand say that Maui's anger was aroused against Ira-waru because he ate all the bait when they went fis.h.i.+ng, and they could catch no fish after paddling out to the fis.h.i.+ng grounds. When they came to land, Maui told Ira-waru to lie down in the sand as a roller over which to drag the canoe up the beach. When he was lying helpless under the canoe, Maui changed him into a dog.
The Arawa legends make the cause of Maui's anger the success of Ira-waru while fis.h.i.+ng. Ira-waru had many fish while Maui had captured but few. The story is told thus: ”Ira-waru hooked a fish and in pulling it in his line became entangled with that of Maui. Maui felt the jerking and began to pull in his line. Soon they pulled their lines close up to the canoe, one to the bow, the other to the stern, where each was sitting. Maui said: 'Let me pull the lines to me, as the fish is on my hook.' His brother-in-law said: 'Not so; the fish is on mine.' But Maui said: 'Let me pull my line in.' Ira-waru did so and saw that the fish was on his hook. Then he said: 'Untwist your lines and let mine go, that I may pull the fish in.' Maui said: 'I will do so, but let me have time.' He took the fish off Ira-waru's hook and saw that there was a barb on the hook. He said to Ira-waru: 'Perhaps we ought to return to land.' When they were dragging the canoe on sh.o.r.e, Maui said to Ira-waru: 'Get between the canoe and outrigger and drag.' Ira-waru did so and Maui leaped on the outrigger and weighed it heavily down and crushed Ira-waru prostrate on the beach. Maui trod on him and pulled his backbone long like a tail and changed him into a dog.”
Maui is said to have tattooed the muzzle of the dog with a beautiful pattern which the birds (kahui-zara, a flock of tern) used in marking the sky. From this also came the red glow which sometimes flushes the face of man.
Another Arawa version of the legend was that Maui and Ira-waru were journeying together. Ira-waru was gluttonous and ate the best food. At last Maui determined to punish his companion. By incantation he lengthened the way until Ira-waru became faint and weary. Maui had provided himself with a little food and therefore was enabled to endure the long way. While Ira-waru slept Maui trod on his backbone and lengthened it and changed the arms and limbs into the legs of a dog.
When Hina-uri saw the state of her husband she went into the thatched house by which Ira-waru had so often stood watching the hollow log in which she dried the fish and preserved the birds speared in the mountains. She bound her girdle and hala-leaf ap.r.o.n around her and went down to the sea to drown herself, that her body might be eaten by the monsters of the sea. When she came to the sh.e.l.l-covered beach, she sat down and sang her death song--
”I weep, I call to the steep billows of the sea And to him, the great, the ocean G.o.d; To monsters, all now hidden, To come and bury me, Who now am wrapped in mourning.
Let the waves wear their mourning, too, And sleep as sleeps the dead.”
--Ancient Maui Chant of New Zealand.
Then Hina-uri threw herself into the sea and was borne on the waves many moons, at last drifting to sh.o.r.e, to be found by two fishermen. They carried the body off to the fire and warmed it back to life. They brushed off the sea moss and sea weeds and rubbed her until she awoke.
Soon they told their chief, Tini-rau, what a beautiful woman they had found in the sea. He came and took her away to make her one of his wives. But the other wives were jealous and drove Hina-uri away from the chief's houses.
Another New Zealand legend says that Hina came to the sea and called for a little fish to aid her in going away from the island. It tried to carry her, but was too weak. Hina struck it with her open hand. It had striped sides forever after. She tried a larger fish, but fell off before they had gone far from sh.o.r.e. Her blow gave this fish its beautiful blue spots. Another received black spots. Another she stamped her foot upon, making it flat. At last a shark carried her far away. She was very thirsty, and broke a cocoanut on the shark's head, making a b.u.mp, which has been handed down for generations. The shark carried her to the home of the two who rescued her and gave her new strength.
Meanwhile Rupe or Maui-mua, a brother of Hina-uri and Maui, grieved for his sister. He sought for her throughout the land and then launched his canoe upon the blue waters surrounding Ao-tea-roa (The Great White Land; the ancient native New Zealand) and searched the coasts. He only learned that his sister had, as the natives said, ”leaped into the waters and been carried away into the heavens.”