Author’s Preface

IN the following pages we shall seek to present an outline of the mythology of the Oceanic peoples. Although certain aspects of the mythic system of this area, as well as the myths of separate portions of it, have been treated by others, the present writer does not know of any recent endeavour to gather all available materials from the whole region, or to discuss the relationship of the mythologies of the various portions of Oceania to one another, and to the adjacent lands. The attempt has been made to go over all the myths of worth which have been published; but it is not impossible that valuable and important material has been overlooked. Some omissions, however, have been due to circumstances beyond control. A number of volumes containing material, probably of considerable value, were not to be found in the libraries of the United States, and disturbances consequent upon the European War have made it impossible to secure them; while other gaps are due to the author’s insufficient knowledge of Malay languages, which prevented the use of some collections of tales, published without translations.

The selection of the legends to be presented has offered considerable difficulty, this being especially marked in the class of what may be denominated, for convenience, miscellaneous tales. No two persons would probably make the same choice, but. it is believed that those which are here given serve as a fair sample of the various types and include those which are of widest interest and distribution. In the majority of cases the tales have been retold in our own words. For strictly scientific purposes exact reproductions of the originals would, of course, be required; but the general purpose of this series, and the limitations of space, have made this method impossible. References have in every case, however, been given; so that those who wish to consult the fuller or original forms of the tales can do so easily. These references, and all notes, have been put into an Appendix at the end of the volume, thus leaving the pages unencumbered for those who wish only to get a general idea of the subject. The Bibliography has, with few exceptions, been restricted to the titles of original publications; reprints and popular and semi-popular articles and volumes have been omitted. Every care has been taken to make the large number of references correct, though it is too much to hope that errors have not crept in.

In the brief discussions at the end of each section, and again at the end of the volume, we have sought to draw conclusions in regard to the probable origin of some of the myths and to point out the evidences of transmission and historical contact which they show. Merely to present the tales without offering any suggestions as to how they had come to be what they are and where they are, seemed to fail of attaining the full purpose of this series. No one is more conscious than the author that the hypotheses offered will not meet with universal acceptance; that they rest, in many cases, upon uncertain foundations; and that, plausible as they may look today, they may be fundamentally modified by new material and further study. Should this essay only serve to stimulate interest in this field, and lead to greater activity in gathering new material while yet there is time, he will be quite content.

ROLAND B. DIXON.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, June 1, 1916.

Introduction

THE myths and tales in this volume have been gathered from all parts of Oceania, and it may be wise, therefore, at the outset to indicate just what area is included in our survey; to sketch very briefly the character of the peoples and the environment in which they live; and to state the general plan and purpose of the book.

The use of the term Oceania is, and has been, rather variable. By some it is taken to include only the smaller Wands of the Pacific Ocean, comprised for the most part within the limits of Polynesia and Micronesia, while others extend the application of the term so as to include also Melanesia as well as the whole group of the East Indies. In the present case it is this latter usage which is followed, and the great island-continent of Australia, together with its appendage of Tasmania, is further added. Thus by Oceania will be meant all island areas, great or small, from Easter Island to Sumatra and from Hawaii to New Zealand.

This great region may, for our purposes, be conveniently divided into five sections: (1) Polynesia, which may be roughly defined as including all the islands lying east of the 180th meridian, together with New Zealand; (2) Melanesia, comprising the huge island of New Guinea, together with all the islands and archipelagos extending therefrom to the east and southeast as far as Fiji and New Caledonia; (3) Indonesia, which includes all the islands often spoken of as the East Indies, and extends from the Moluccas on the east to Sumatra on the west, and from Java and Timor in the south to the northern extremity of the Philippines; (4) Micronesia, composed, as its name implies, mainly of small islands, and occupying the area north of Melanesia and east of the 130th meridian of east longitude; and lastly (5), but by no means. least in importance, Australia, together with Tasmania.

As compared with all the other great divisions of the world, Oceania is unique in that, if we exclude Australia (which, although an island, is so enormous in size as to lose all insular characteristics), it is composed wholly of islands. These vary in size from mere reefs or islets, only a mile or so in diameter, to great land masses, like New Zealand or Borneo, whose areas are to be measured by hundreds of thousands of square miles. Some are low coral atolls elevated only a few feet above the surface of the sea; others are volcanic and mountainous, their summits rising into the realms of perpetual snow. Although the greater part of Oceania lies within the tropics and has the usual features of tropical environment in the way of climate, flora, and fauna, it extends here and there far into the temperate zone, and the snowy New Zealand Alps, with their huge glaciers, suggest Switzerland and Norway rather than anything else. In New Guinea, Borneo, and (to a less degree) in a few other islands the same great contrast in environment is produced by elevation alone, and one may thus pass from the barren peaks and snows of the highest ranges down through all the intermediate stages to the hot tropical jungle and fever-laden swamps of the coasts. Australia, in its vast expanses of terrible deserts, again presents a striking contrast to the other parts of the area, although one of a different sort.

The native peoples of the Oceanic area are almost as varied as are its natural features and environment. Some, like the recently discovered New Guinea pygmies or the now extinct Tasmanians, serve as examples of the lowest stages known in human culture. With their black skins, ugly faces, and short woolly hair they are in striking contrast to the often little more than brunette Polynesians, with their voluptuously beautiful forms and faces and long, wavy hair, or to the lithe, keen-faced, straight-haired Malay, both of whom attained to no mean development on the material as well as on the intellectual side of their respective cultures.

The origin, evolution, and affiliation of the various peoples of Oceania is a problem whose complexity becomes more and more apparent with increasing knowledge. While anthropologists are still far from satisfactorily explaining these matters., it is patent to all that the ethnic history of the region involves the recognition of a series of waves of migration from the westward, each spreading itself more or less completely over its predecessors, modifying them, and in turn modified by them, until the result is a complex web, the unravelling of which leads us inevitably back to the Asiatic mainland. It is obvious that, while migrations on land are not necessarily conditioned by the stage of culture of a people, in an island area, especially where the islands are separated by wide stretches of ocean, movement is impossible, or at least very difficult, for peoples who have attained only the rudiments of the art of seamanship. A glance at the map will show that, so far as Indonesia, much of Melanesia, and Australia are concerned, the difficulties in the way of the migration of a primitive people are far less than in the case of Micronesia and Polynesia. In the former areas, indeed, some land masses now separated were in comparatively recent times joined together, so that migrations were then possible which now would be difficult for a people without knowledge of any means of navigation; but to reach the widely separated islands farther out in the Pacific would have been impossible to those unprovided with adequate vessels and skill to use them. Thus we are forced to assume that it was not until man had attained a considerably higher development than that shown by the Tasmanians or Australians that these outlying and isolated parts of the Oceanic area could have been inhabited. It is indeed probable that they were, of all the occupied portions of the globe, the last to be settled.

From what has been said it may be seen how fertile and fascinating a field Oceania presents to the student of anthropology. In the following pages we are concerned, however, with one aspect only of the whole complex of human culture, namely, mythology. In order to make clear the differences between the various portions of the area, each of the five subdivisions will be considered by itself alone, and also in its relation to the others, while, in conclusion, an attempt will be made to sum up these results and to point out their wider bearings. Throughout the purpose has been, not only to sketch the more important types of myths, but to draw attention to resemblances and similarities between the myth-incidents of one area and another. In the present state of our knowledge the conclusions which are drawn are, it cannot be too strongly emphasized, only tentative—they must stand or fall according as they are substantiated or disproved by further material, both mythological and other.

A word may be said in regard to the method of treatment and point of view here adopted. In indicating similarities and suggesting possible relationships, individual incidents in myths have been largely taken as the basis. The author is well aware how easily such a method may lead to wild and impossible conclusions; the literature of mythology and folk-lore affords only too many examples of such amazing discoveries; but where caution is observed, and due regard is paid to known or probable historical associations, the evidence to be derived from a study of the distribution of myth-incidents is often reliable and corroborated by collateral information derived from other fields. It should also be pointed out that in the following pages we have endeavoured to present only the myths themselves, and have purposely refrained from all attempts at rationalizing them or explaining this as a lunar, that as a solar, myth. Such attempts are, we believe, almost wholly futile in the present state of our knowledge of Oceanic mythology, culture, and history. A dextrous imagination can evolve either a lunar or a solar explanation for any myth, and one needs to have but little personal experience with native peoples to realize how hopeless it is for the civilized inquirer to predicate what the symbolism of anything really is to the native mind. The study of mythology has, in the last few years, also demonstrated to what a degree all myths are in a state of flux, new elements and incidents being borrowed and incorporated into old tales and modified to accord with local beliefs and predispositions. Thus, what starts out, perhaps, as a solar incident may come to be embodied in another myth of quite different origin, and in so doing may wholly lose its former significance; or an entire myth, originally accounting for one thing, may become so modified by transmission that its first meaning becomes lost.

Lastly, we may again point out that at present the available material is still so imperfect that all conclusions must be accepted with reserve. Not only are there large areas from which no data whatever have been collected (and even some from which, owing either to the extinction of the population or their greatly changed manner of life, none can ever be obtained), but very little, comparatively, of what has been gathered has been recorded in the language of the people themselves. Misunderstandings, conscious or unconscious colouring of statements to accord with preconceived ideas of what the people ought to think, statements made by natives who obligingly tell the investigator just what they think he wants to hear—these and other sources of error must be eliminated so far as possible before we can be sure of our ground. In spite of all this, however, it is worth while to take account of stock, as it were, and to see, as well as we can, where we stand. By so doing we may at least recognize the gaps in our knowledge and be spurred on to try to fill them while yet there is time.

PART I. POLYNESIA

THAT portion of Oceania whose mythology is both most is widely known and to which reference is most frequently made is undoubtedly Polynesia. One of the chief reasons for this lies in the character of the legends themselves, for they are both pleasing and in many respects unusual. We may well begin then with Polynesia in presenting an outline of Oceanic mythology.

The people of these Happy Isles have, from the beginning, been of great interest to anthropologists; but although much has been learned regarding them, the problems of their origin and ethnic history are still far from being settled. Most students of the subject, however, are now agreed that in the Polynesians we must see a somewhat complex blending of several waves of immigration, bringing relatively fair-skinned peoples from the Indonesian area (or perhaps from still farther west) eastward through Melanesia into the Pacific. That there have been at least two, and probably more, such great waves, and that these have in varying degree mixed with the dark-skinned people of Melanesia in transit, seems clear; but whether other racial elements also enter into the question is not yet certain. Although older and younger waves are probably represented in all the island-groups of Polynesia, the oldest seems especially noticeable in two of the most outlying portions of the whole region, i. e. New Zealand and Hawaii. The detailed study of the spread of these waves can as yet however be said only to have begun.

CHAPTER I. MYTHS OF ORIGINS AND THE DELUGE

IN considering the mythology of these peoples it will be most convenient to begin with the cosmogonic myths, for these are not only in themselves very interesting, as presenting unusual features, but also show, in an unmistakable manner, the composite character of the mythology as a whole. It is usual to speak of the Polynesian origin-myths as if they formed a substantially uniform system, to comment on their rather surprisingly philosophic aspect, and to indulge in somewhat vague theorizing in an attempt to explain conditions and the peculiar resemblances to the myths of other parts of the world. When, however, careful study and comparison of the available material are made, it is clear that the problem is by no means as simple as it looks at first sight, and that we have here one of the most interesting of all fields for mythologic investigations.

Comparing the various myths and myth fragments in which the cosmogonic ideas of the Polynesians have been preserved, it appears that these may be separated quite easily into two types: one (usually assumed to be the normal or only form) in which we have what may be called a genealogical or evolutionary development of the cosmos and the gods from an original chaos; the other, in which there is a more or less definite act of creation by a deity or deities. To make clear the differences between these two types and to define the problem raised by the presence of these two contrasted sets of beliefs, it will be advisable to consider the two groups of myths separately.

The Genealogical or Evolutionary Type.—Omitting for the moment such variations as exist between the versions current in the different islands, the essential elements of this form of the myth may be stated as follows. In the beginning there was nothing but Po, a void or chaos, without light, heat, or sound, without form or motion. Gradually vague stirrings began within the darkness, moanings and whisperings arose, and then at first, faint as early dawn, the light appeared and grew until full day had come. Heat and moisture next developed, and from the interaction of these elements came substance and form, ever becoming more and more concrete, until the solid earth and overarching sky took shape and were personified as Heaven Father and Earth Mother. At this point, as a rule, the evolutionary sequence stops and all further things, both natural phenomena and all the myriad gods, are the offspring of bright Heaven by Earth or some other female principle.

This conception of a self-evolving cosmos, of a universe declared by some to be only the body or shell of a great primal cause, is a most surprising one to find among a people upon the plane of culture in which the Polynesians were living at the time of their discovery. As an explanation of the riddle of the universe, and as a philosophic system, it would seem far more appropriate to early Greek or Hindu speculation; and indeed, in the form which was preserved in Hawaii, we really find an extraordinary echo of the doctrines of early Hellas and India; while the resemblances to Scandinavian mythology are also striking. Before attempting, however, to discuss the origin of these beliefs in Polynesia, it will be necessary to consider somewhat more in detail the varied forms which they take in the different island groups within the Polynesian area.

As pointed out above,  New Zealand presents us with what is, in many respects, one of the oldest and simplest forms of Polynesian culture, and we may, therefore, well begin a consideration of the origin-myths. by examining those found in this extreme south-western corner of the Polynesian area. From New Zealand a number of versions have been recorded, the forms, traditional among different tribes being often quite variable. A comparatively brief account is given by the Nga-i-tahu of the South Island. "Po begat Te-ao (light), who begat Ao-marama (daylight), who begat Ao-tu-roa (long-standing light), who begat Kore-te-whiwhia (did not possess), who begat Kore-te-rawea (was not pleased with), who begat Kore-te-tamaua (was not held), who begat Kore-te-matua (without parent), who begat Maku (damp). Maku took to wife Ma-hora-nui-a-tea (great spreading out of light) and begat Raki (Rangi)." After this Rangi, by various wives (whose origins are seldom recorded), begat a great number of descendants, many of them deities; and one of these spouses was originally the wife of Tangaroa, the sea-god of whose provenance little is said. Angered by her faithlessness, Tangaroa attacked Rangi and wounded him in the thigh with a spear. 

It will be seen at once why the term "genealogical" has been applied to this class of origin-myths, the successive stages in the development of the cosmos being individualized and personified and each being regarded as the offspring of the next preceding. A different, and in some ways more interesting, version of creation recorded from the New Zealand region is as follows: 

"Te Kore	The Void
Te Kore-tua-tahi	The First Void
Te Kore-tua-rua	The Second Void
Te Kore-nui	The Vast Void
Te Kore-roa	The Far-Extending Void
Te Kore-para	The Sere Void
Te Kore-whiwhia	The Unpossessing Void
Te Kore-rawea	The Delightful Void
Te Kore-te-tamaua	The Void Fast Bound
Te Po	The Night
Te Po-teki	The Hanging Night
Te Po-terea	The Drifting Night
Te Po-whawha	The Moaning Night
Hine-maki-moe	The Daughter of Troubled Sleep
Te Po	The Night
Te Ata	The Dawn
Te Ao-tu-roa	The Abiding Day
Te Ao-marama	The Bright Day
Whai-tua	Space."

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In Whai-tua two existences without shape were formed: Maku ("Moisture"), a male; and Mahora-nui-a-rangi ("Great Expanse of Heaven"), a female; and from these sprang Rangi-potiki ("The Heavens"), who took to wife Papa ("Earth") and begat the gods. The sequence here, leading from the original undifferentiated void through -various stages of darkness and light to space, in which the parents of the bright sky took form, illustrates at once the dual character of this type of myth; for here we find both the idea of progressive development and the individualization of the successive stages in this evolution as a genealogic series.

One more example of this type may be given: 

"From the conception the increase
From the increase the swelling
From the swelling the thought
From the thought the remembrance
From the remembrance the consciousness, the desire.
The word became fruitful:
It dwelt with the feeble glimmering
It brought forth night;
The great night, the long night,
The lowest night, the loftiest night,
The thick night, the night to be felt,
The night touched, the night unseen.
The night following on,
The night ending in death.
From the nothing, the begetting,
From the nothing the increase
From the nothing the abundance,
The power of increasing, the living breath;
It dwelt with the empty space,
It produced the atmosphere which is above us.
The atmosphere which floats above the earth,
The great firmament above us,
The spreadout space dwelt with the early dawn,
Then the moon sprang forth;
The atmosphere above dwelt with the glowing sky,
Forthwith was produced the sun,
They were thrown up above as the chief eyes of Heaven:
Then the Heavens became light, the early dawn, the early day,
The mid-day. The blaze of day from the sky.
The sky which floats above the earth
Dwelt with Hawaiki."

From these came various lands and gods. 

Apparently it has been generally assumed that this evolutionary, genealogical myth was entirely typical of Maori mythology; but in reality the matter is far from being so simple, for the New Zealand beliefs appear to be somewhat confused on the subject of the origin of Rangi and Papa. The version just outlined ascribes to Rangi a long ancestry and development, but other legends  allude to a primeval sea, out of which the earth (Papa) grew, later to be taken to wife by Rangi, the Sky Father. Other myths,  again, omit all reference to an original chaos, and without attempting to account for Rangi and Papa simply assume their existence, and then go on in much detail to describe the birth of Rangi’s various progeny by a series of wives, who are usually given as six.  By the first, Poko-ha-rua-te-po ("Pit of the Breath of Night"), he had as offspring Ha-nui-o-rangi ("Great Breath of Heaven"), Ta-whiri-ma-tea ("Beckoned and Desired"), and a whole series of winds, as well as rites and incantations, all personified. By the second, Papa-tu-a-nuku ("Flat, Resembling the Earth"), he was the parent of Rehua, Tane, Paia, Tu, Rongo, Ru, and a host of other minor deities. Now Papa-tu-a-nuku was the wife of Tangaroa, but had deserted him, coming to Rangi while Tangaroa was away. When the latter returned and learned of his wife’s faithlessness, he attacked Rangi and speared him in the thigh; and during the time that the Sky Father was thus wounded, he begat another series of deities.

Rangi’s third wife was Heke-heke-i-papa ("Coming Down to Earth"), by whom he had many children, the most important being Tama-nui-a-rangi ("Great Son of Heaven"). By his fourth wife, Hotu-papa ("Sobbing Earth"), he was the father of a host of children, for the most part of little note, though Tu and Rongo again appear among them. The offspring of the fifth and sixth wives were unimportant. Although Rangi is thus said to have had various wives, a comparison of the different accounts would seem to emphasize the pre-eminent importance in the Maori mind of the Heaven Father and Earth Mother pair; and, indeed, some versions  do not seem to recognize any other. This conception, familiar in classical mythology and elsewhere, seems very characteristic of New Zealand, and apparently reached a higher development there than elsewhere in Polynesia. For the Sky Father an origin from the primeval night or chaos is, as we have seen, sometimes asserted; but no explanation of the origin of the Earth Mother is usually thought necessary. New Zealand thus exhibits, a type of cosmogony in which the evolutional element, although sometimes well marked, is not invariably present; and in which the belief in the Sky Father and the Earth Mother seems especially strong. The general character of the variants found in different versions suggests that these may bee the result of the blending of several sets of beliefs.

It is pretty well established that when New Zealand was discovered, its inhabitants were composed of two main elements: first, the descendants of the great influx of the fourteenth century, who formed the bulk of the population; and second, some remnants of older immigrants more or less mixed with the earliest dwellers found there by these original invaders. Unfortunately, little attempt has been made to recover the undoubtedly older mythology of these "aborigines," so that we have little evidence as to what their beliefs may have been. Some light may be thrown on the question, however, by the fragments recovered from the Moriori of the Chatham Islands,  which were colonized from New Zealand before the coming of the historic immigration. Unhappily, the actual cosmogonic myths recorded from the Moriori are very brief, but, so far as they go they make little mention of the evolutionary theme, ascribing the beginning of all things to Rangi and Papa, of whose origin almost nothing is said.  We may, perhaps, regard this as a survival of the older New Zealand belief, which would thus seem to have lacked the evolutionary element, and we should thus be led tentatively to assume that this latter and more philosophic feature represents a later development.

Leaving Maori mythology and turning to the other island groups in Polynesia it is apparent that the cosmogonic myths current in the Marquesas present striking analogies to some of those in New Zealand. Here, again, in the beginning is the primeval void in which "arises a swelling, a seething, a dark surging, a whirling, a bubbling, and a swallowing—there arises a whole series of supports or posts, the great and the small, the long and the short, the crooked and the bent—there arise innumerable and endless supports. They riot in such contrasts and synonyms. There arises in particular the foundation—the firmness—there arises space and light and cliffs of various sorts."  The evolutionary or genealogical character is here strongly emphasized, both in its extent and intricacy, and the series of personified abstract qualities and contrasts rivals, and even exceeds, the similar examples from New Zealand. In comparison with New Zealand, accordingly, there seems to be a much greater development of the evolutional, or, as it might perhaps more accurately be termed, the developmental, theme. The antecedents of the existing universe comprise a bewildering series of abstract and partially personified, contrasted qualities; and there is an evident attempt to carry these, on the one hand, backward to an original, negative void, and on the other, forward to an ultimate, primitive substance. In other words, we have here more of a philosophic

system: in New Zealand the briefer developmental series led only to the personified Sky Father; here it is the origin of all substance and of solid matter itself which is sought.

Another version  serves as a transition to the forms found in the Society Group. According to this, Tanaoa and Mutuhei ("Darkness" and "Silence") ruled supreme in the primeval Po. In the course of time Atea ("Light") evolved or separated himself from Tanaoa, and drove him away; and after this, Ono ("Sound") evolved himself from Atea and destroyed Mutuhei. From these two struggles arose Atanua ("Dawn"), whom Atea took to wife, and so begat a host of deities, besides creating the heavens and the earth. This second version introduces a new factor in the suggestion of a primeval deity, Tangaroa. This feature is usually regarded as foreign to New Zealand mythology,  yet in a recent and most important contribution to our knowledge of Maori mythology  there seems to be a clearly expressed idea of a supreme, primeval deity, Io, who was before all things, and who is in the ultimate analysis the origin and creator of the universe and all the gods. 

The versions given from the Society Islands accord with that from the Marquesas in which Tanaoa ( = Tangaroa = Taaroa = Kanaloa) is regarded as a deity existent from the beginning, but carry this ascendancy of Tanaoa considerably further. One text  recounts the origin as follows:

"He existed. Taaroa was his name.
In the immensity
There was no earth, there was no sky,
There was no sea, there was no man.
Taaroa calls, but nothing answers.
Existing alone, he became the universe.
Taaroa is the root, the rocks (foundation).
Taaroa is the sands.
It is thus that he is named.
Taaroa is the light.
Taaroa is within.
Taaroa is the germ.
Taaroa is the support.
Taaroa is enduring.
Taaroa is wise.
He erected the land of Hawaii,
Hawaii, the great and sacred,
As a body or shell for Taaroa.
The earth is moving.
O, Foundations, O, Rocks,
O, Sands, hither, hither,
Brought hither, pressed together the earth.
Press, press again.
They do not unite.
Stretch out the seven heavens, let ignorance cease.
Create the heavens, let darkness cease.

Let immobility cease.
Let the period of messengers cease.
It is the time of the speaker.
Completed the foundations,
Completed the rocks,
Completed the sands,
The heavens are enclosing,
The heavens are raised.
In the depths is finished the land of Hawaii."

A second version  is interesting in comparison with this. "Taaroa (whose origin is not described) embraced a rock, the imagined foundation of all things, which afterward brought forth the earth and sea. . . . Soon after this, the heralds of day, the dark and light blue sky, appeared before Taaroa, and solicited a soul for his offspring—the then inanimate universe. The foundation of all replied, ’It is done,’ and directed his son, the Sky-producer, to accomplish his will. In obedience to the mandate of Taaroa, his son looked up into the heavens, and the heavens received the power of bringing forth new skies, and clouds, sun, moon, and stars, thunder and lightning, rain and wind. He then looked downwards, and the unformed mass received the power to bring forth earth, mountains, rocks, trees, herbs, and flowers, beasts, birds, and insects, fountains, rivers, and fish. Rai-tubu, or Sky-producer, then looked to the abyss, and imparted to it the power to bring forth the purple water., rocks and corals, and all the inhabitants of the ocean." It is obvious that we are now dealing with quite a different aspect from that with which we started. Tangaroa is here a sort of world soul; a self-evolving, self-existent, creative deity, who alone is ultimately responsible for the origin of the universe. The idea of a primeval, creative deity is, however, not wholly absent from New Zealand, as is shown by the following: 

"Io dwelt within the breathing-space of immensity.
The Universe was in darkness, with water everywhere,
There was no glimmer of dawn, no clearness, no light.
And he began by saying these words,—
That He might cease remaining inactive:
    ’Darkness! become a light-possessing darkness.’
And at once light appeared.
(He) then repeated those self-same words in this manner,
That He might cease remaining inactive:
    ’Light! become a darkness-possessing light.’
And again an intense darkness supervened,
And a third time He spake, saying:
    ’Let there be one darkness above,
    Let there be one darkness below (alternate),
    Let there be a darkness unto Tupua,
    Let there be a darkness unto Tawhito,
    It is a darkness overcome and dispelled.
    Let there be one light above,
    Let there be one light below (alternate),
    Let there be a light unto Tupua,
    Let there be a light unto Tawhito,
    A dominion of light,
    A bright light.’
And now a great light prevailed.
(Io) then looked to the waters, which compassed him about,
And spake a fourth time, saying:
    ’Ye waters of Tai-kama be ye separate
    Heaven, be formed’ Then the sky became suspended.
    ’Bring-forth, thou, Tupua-horo-riuku.’
And at once the moving earth lay stretched abroad."

The cosmogonic ideas of the inhabitants of the Cook or Hervey Group are not clear. The form in which they are given is quite divergent from that in other islands, but the account  really gives no true cosmogony, for it describes only the origin of several deities. The universe, of whose beginning nothing is said, is pictured as a hollow shell, in form like a beet, at the lower extremity of which is "The Root of All Existence," above which comes "Breathing All Life" and the "Long-Lived." Next above, where the walls of the shell come together, is Vari-ma-te-takere ("The Very Beginning"), a female deity who creates six other deities—Vatea (called Atea in the Marquesas, and Wakea in Hawaii), Tinirau ("Innumerable "), Tango (" Support "), Tu-mute-anaoa (" Echo "), Raka ("Trouble"), and Tu-metua ("Stick by the Parent"). Vatea, whose abode was "The Thin Land," espoused Papa (" Foundation" or "Earth"), the daughter of Tima-te-kore ("Nothing More"), and became the parent of the five great deities, Tangaroa, Rongo, Tonga-iti, Tangiia, and Tane. The account does not harmonize well with any of the preceding beliefs, almost its only point of contact being the union of Vatea (associated with the light or bright sky) and Papa, and their consequent begetting of the gods. It seems very probable that the real cosmogonic myths of this group have not been recorded.

Summing up the material thus far presented, it may be said that we have in New Zealand one form of cosmogonic myth which indicates a belief in the origin, from an initial chaos, of a Sky-God, Rangi, who, in conjunction with Papa ("The Earth") and other female powers, becomes the father of gods and men. The accounts, as we have them, give the impression of being somewhat fragmentary, as well as composite, and they represent, it may be suggested, the overlaying of an older stratum by the type of origin-myth which was current in the Cook and Society Groups in the fourteenth century—the time of the historic emigration from this portion of central Polynesia which brought to New Zealand the ancestors of the great bulk of the population found there at the period of its discovery. This central Polynesian form of myth appears to be strongly developed in the Marquesas also, though with some modifications, notably in tracing the origin of Papa more definitely.  Here, however, this type appears itself to be strongly modified in some versions by still another class of myth, that, namely, in which Tangaroa plays the part of a real creator. In the Society Group this feature is still more pronounced, and we have Tangaroa treated almost as a world soul, a deity of whom the cosmos is only a manifestation.

One of the most curious and interesting of Polynesian cosmogonic myths is that found in Hawaii, which, although differing in several important particulars from those just outlined, must yet be considered as belonging to the same general type.  In the very beginning, however, a striking variation occurs, in that although we have the source of all things from chaos, it is a chaos which is simply the wreck and ruin of an earlier world. "And so, creation begins in the origin of a new world from the shadowy reflex of one that is past. . . .

"Unsteadily, as in dim moon-shimmer,
From out Makalii’s night-dark veil of cloud
Thrills, shadow-like, the prefiguration of the world to be." 

The drama of creation, according to the Hawaiian account, is divided into a series of stages, and in the very first of these life springs from the shadowy abyss and dark night. There is here, however, no long series of antecedent, vaguely personified entities ranged in genealogical sequence, but the immediate appearance of living things. At first the lowly zoophytes and corals come into being, and these are followed by worms and shellfish, each type being declared to conquer and destroy its predecessor, a struggle for existence in which the strongest survive. Parallel with this evolution of animal forms, plant life begins on land and in the sea—at first with the algae, followed by seaweeds and rushes.  As type follows type, the accumulating slime of their decay raises the land above the waters, in which, as spectator of all, swims the octopus, the lone survivor from an earlier world. In the next Period Black Night and Wide-Spread Night give birth to leafy plants and to insects and birds, while in the darkness the first faint glimmering of day appears. The sea brings forth its higher forms, such as the medusae, fishes, and whales; and in the dim twilight monstrous forms creep in the mud. Food plants come into existence while all nature is thrown into an uproar under the stress of its birth-pains. The fifth period sees the emergence of swine (the highest mammal known to the Hawaiian), and night becomes separated from day. In the sixth, mice appear on land, and porpoises in the sea; the seventh period witnesses the development of various abstract psychic qualities, later to be embodied in man; while in the eighth, the turmoil and uproar having subsided, from peace and quiet, fructified by the light, which is now brilliant, woman is born, and also man, together with some of the higher gods.

The principal difference between this conception—which is truly remarkable for a savage people—and the myths previously outlined are fivefold: first, the derivation of the present world from the wreck of an earlier; second, the omission of much of the cosmic development, if it may so be called; third, the ascription of the origins of life to the earliest period of creation and the tracing of its evolution from lower to higher forms; fourth, the suggestion, at least, of the building up of the solid earth as due to the gradual accumulation of the products of decay of the first life; and, lastly, the absence of the Heaven Father and Earth Mother, figures which form so characteristic a part of the New Zealand myths. In spite of these divergencies, however, the fundamental idea of evolutionary sequence, as opposed to creation, is clearly marked; and here, as in the New Zealand myths, the gods; are a product of, or an emanation from, the universe, rather than the preexistent germ of all development. Nevertheless here, as in other Polynesian groups, there were several conflicting versions of the origin-myth; and we find, among others, one  in which a triad of gods (not including Tangaroa, however) is said to have "existed from and before chaos."  The evolutionary myth, moreover, which has been outlined. above, itself shows indications of a complex origin; so that in Hawaii, as elsewhere in Polynesia, there is evidence that the beliefs of the people in regard to origins are far from presenting a uniform type.

The evolutionary motive has been shown to be well developed both in New Zealand and in Hawaii as well as in the Marquesas; but in the West it appears to survive only in more or less fragmentary form, being largely overlaid and supplanted by other themes. In Samoa one version  of the origin-myth begins with a genealogical series of rocks or cliffs,  from which at length arises the octopus, whose children are fire and water. Between their descendants arises a mighty conflict, in which water wins and the world is destroyed by a flood only to be recreated by Tangaloa. This element of world-destruction and re-creation suggests the Hawaiian myth already outlined, but the evolutionary feature is here reduced to a mere fragment. Another version,  in giving the genealogy of the Malietoa, or ruling chief, carries the ancestors back through a long series of pairs of deities or natural phenomena to "The High Rocks" and the "Earth Rocks," as follows:

Male	Female	Progeny
"The high rocks	The earth rocks	The earth
The earth	High winds	Solid clouds
Solid clouds	Flying clouds	Confused winds
		Quiet winds
		Boisterous winds
		Land beating winds
		Dew of life
Dew of Life	Clouds clinging to the heavens	Clouds flying about
Clouds flying about	Clear heavens	Shadow
		Twilight
		Daylight
		Noonday
		Afternoon
		Sunset
Quiet winds	Beautiful clouds	Cloudless heavens
Cloudless heavens	Spread-out heavens	Tangaloa

  In these forms we see very clearly the genealogical impulse and the developmental idea, but here the primeval pair is the solid rock rather than the formless chaos and silence of Marquesan and New Zealand myths. Another version  recalls more strongly the Hawaiian type, since it presents a succession of forms of vegetable life following each other as offspring and parent, although the elaborateness and coherence of the Hawaiian evolution of life forms is far from being equalled. In the few fragments of the Tongan mythology which have been preserved  no trace of this evolutionary theme appears.

The Creative Type

.—Turning to the second of the main themes shown in the origin-myths, namely, that characterized by belief in a more or less definite creation, notable differences in distribution are at once apparent. In outline the legends of this class recount that in the beginning the gods dwelt in an upper sky-world, below which there was nothing but a wide-spread sea. Into this a deity cast a stone, which ultimately became the world, where, after some of the heavenly beings had descended, mankind later appeared. For the fullest versions of this myth we must turn to Samoa,  on the western verge of the Polynesian area, where, it will be remembered, only fragments of the evolutionary theme still survive. From the high heavens Tangaloa saw a stone floating in the boundless sea beneath, and this he brought up to the skies, where he shaped it into human form, inspired it with life, and took it to wife.  She bore him a bird, which he sent down from the sky-world, casting into the sea a great rock to serve it for a home. After a while the bird returned to Tangaloa, complaining of the shadeless character of the land, and so the god cast down a vine which grew and gave shadow, but afterward Tangaloa in anger sent worms, which fed upon the vines and killed them, and from the worms or maggots, developed from the rotting vines, man was later made. In this and in other versions from Samoa there is, as a rule, little of an actual fashioning or shaping of the world, although this element appears in one or two cases.  The important feature is the belief in a pre-existing world of the gods above, whence something from which the world is ultimately to be made is cast down into the universal sea below; and a further element is the appearance of the bird, who is the messenger or offspring of the sky-deity. A similar version is (or was) current in Tonga.  Tama-pouli-alamafoa ("King of Heaven"), Tangaloa-eiki ("Celestial Chief "), Tangaloa-tufuga (" Celestial Artisan "), and Tangaloa-atu-logo-logo ("Celestial Messenger") dwelt in the heavens. Tangaloa, the divine messenger, was ordered to descend to this world to see if he could find any land, wherefore he departed on a bird, and after flying about for a long time descried a sandbank on which the waves broke. Returning to the skies, he reported that he could find no dry land, but the lords of heaven said to him, "Wait for seven days, and then go back and look again." He did so and found the land already risen above the waters. Bringing back tidings of his discovery, he was again instructed to wait and to look once more, for this dry land which he had seen was indeed the earth. Tangaloa, the divine messenger, then complained that there was no place below where he could rest and was told to ask Tangaloa, the divine artificer, to cast down chips and shavings from his work. This he did, and the island of Eua arose. The divine messenger again descended and lo, there was land which thus had fallen from the skies. The lords of heaven now ordered him to go and live upon this land, but when he had visited it he returned again to heaven and said, "It is a great land that I have seen, but there is in it no plant or tree." Then the divine chief gave him a seed, ordering him to plant it, and when he had done so, the seed germinated and grew, and a great vine arose, spreading until it covered all the land.

Outside of Samoa and Tonga this form of origin-myth scarcely occurs, except in so far as one may perhaps detect an echo of it in the statement that in the beginning there was nothing but a wide-extending sea, on which a deity floated or over which he flew. Thus, in the Society Group, a myth fragment states:  "In the beginning there was only the god Ihoiho.  Afterward there was an expanse of waters that covered the abyss; and the god Timo-taata floated on the surface." Similarly, in the Marquesas we find it stated  that "In the beginning there was only the sea, on which Tiki, a deity existing from the first, floated in a canoe, and afterward fished up the land from the bottom of the ocean." These-suggest the Samoan versions,  according to which Tangaroa, in the beginning, flew far and wide over the boundless waters, seeking a place to rest. The theme is, perhaps, still more clearly recognizable in another version from the Society Group,  according to which Taaroa existed alone in the heavens, where he created his daughter with whom, on the foundation of a rock in the sea, he made the earth, the sky, and the sea. Tongan mythology also refers to the primeval sea and to the realm of the gods far away, whence Maui sails to fish up the land of Tonga.  This latter episode seems to represent a different element almost throughout Polynesia and probably should not be regarded as belonging to this theme. 

Still another origin-myth, which is particularly interesting because of its similarities, is that of the cosmic egg. A fragment of a myth from the Society Group  states, "In the beginning, Taaroa existed in an egg, in darkness, from which he later burst forth." In Hawaii another version appears, according to which a bird laid an egg upon the primeval waters, and this afterward burst of itself and produced the world.  A somewhat similar tale has been reported from New Zealand also,  according to which a great bird flew over the primeval sea and dropped into it an egg, which burst after floating for some time. An old man and an old woman emerged with a canoe, and after they had entered it—together with a boy and a girl, one carrying a dog, the other a pig—it drifted to land in New Zealand. The resemblance shown to Hindu cosmogonic ideas is not a little striking, and leads to possible conclusions of importance regarding the period of Polynesian migrations, since, if this similarity be regarded as too great to be explained otherwise than by actual transmission, we should have evidence that the last wave of Polynesian immigrants must have left the Indonesian area at least as late as the first or second century A. D., by which time Indian civilization had become established in Java. Such a migration, coming into central Polynesia, might have brought this, together with other elements, which later were distributed north to Hawaii and south to New Zealand before the period of wide contact came to an end in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.

The simple statement that the heavens and the earth, sun, moon, plants, and animals were all made or created by some deity is found in one form or other in every Polynesian group,  and while such a declaration is not so significant as the more detailed forms, yet it serves to indicate a distinctly different conception from what has been called the "evolutionary" theme.

From the materials at present available it would appear that we may with reasonable certainty draw the conclusion that the cosmogonic myths of the Polynesian people are based on at least two themes, one of which may be called the evolutionary or genealogical, and the other the creative. The relative importance and geographic distribution of these two contrasted themes have, moreover, been shown to differ in that the former seems best developed in New Zealand and Hawaii and is largely modified or overlaid by the second in central and western Polynesia. This latter, although it is found almost everywhere in its simple contrast of creation as opposed to evolution, presents an altogether special form in Samoa, and perhaps also in the Marquesas and Society Groups. The evolutionary or genealogical element in Polynesian legends has always attracted attention, and to a certain extent the inborn interest in genealogy shown by all Polynesians is probably responsible for the growth of this side of the mythology.

Everywhere chiefs, as well as common people, preserved lists of their ancestors extending back for many generations, and in the case of the chiefs a divine descent was claimed. To a people so infused with this genealogical habit the ascription of an ancestry not only to the gods, but to the world and to all natural phenomena, was not an illogical step. Other factors, however, also entered into the problem, for from the character of most of these primitive ancestral pairs it is clear that the Polynesian mind had something of a philosophic turn, and that it groped about for a real cause or beginning, seeking to derive the concrete and tangible from the abstract and intangible.

It has been most ingeniously suggested  that the peculiar environment of the Polynesians had much to do with the development of their special type of cosmogony. Living, as they did, isolated on small islands in the midst of a wide-reaching expanse of ocean—with the contrast between the immobility and changelessness of their little lands and the ever-moving, ever-changing sea always before them—it would not be surprising if they were led to try to account for this stability in the midst of universal flux on some such basis as that which we actually find. On that theory it is evident that this type of cosmogonic myth would be said to be a strictly local product of the environment in which the Polynesians dwelt; but, on the other hand, there is not a little evidence that the germs, at least, of this type were present among the original immigrants. Theoretically, a quite different solution of the problem might be proposed, based on real or fancied resemblance to Hindu speculation. On this basis it might be argued, as previously in regard to the cosmic egg, that the last immigrant groups to reach Polynesia from the West did not leave the Indonesian region until after this had been influenced by Indian culture, already strong in south-eastern Asia at the beginning of our era; and although this theory meets with several serious difficulties, it must, nevertheless, be taken into consideration. Further discussion of the question of possible Indian influence in Polynesia may, however, best be reserved for the final estimate of Oceanic mythology as a whole. Critical consideration and comparison of the creation theme must also be left until the Indonesian myths have been discussed, for this type, especially in the particular form in which it appears in Samoa and Tonga, is widely distributed in the more westerly area—a region in which, moreover, the proximate origin of the Polynesian peoples must be sought.

The myths thus far considered have been those which were concerned only with the source of the world; we have now to deal with those which describe the origin of man. As before, we may recognize more than one type of myth. There is, first, the form according to which the ancestors of mankind were directly created by one or other of the deities. A second type is that where the first human being, a woman, was thus immediately created by a deity and subsequently taken to wife by him, so that man, as his descendant, is thus in origin half divine. Related to this is a third form, where man is said to be the direct offspring of the deities, and so wholly divine. Lastly, we have the types in which human beings are thought to be the result of a sort of evolutionary process, developing from worms, which are shaped and moulded into human form.

Maori mythology offers examples of the type which ascribes the origin of man to direct creation. According to one version,  Tane desired to make man, so he formed a model of earth. "The arms stood forth, and the head, and the feet, and the thighs, and the whole body; and all were fashioned to the design he had formed in his mind—made to resemble the body of man. He patted it with his hands into form from the soil of Hawaiki. When he had completed it, he raised it up and stood it erect . . . Tiki or Tiki-au-a-ha was the name Tane gave to the form he made of the earth, which was the first inhabitant of the world." Tane next meditated how he could make a woman who should be a companion to Tiki-au-a-ha, so he again modelled the soil of Hawaiki and prayed, and Io-wahine was produced. Then he ordered her to live with Tiki as his wife, and by them all the world was peopled.  According to other versions, however, it was Tiki himself who, as a deity, made the first man of red clay or of clay mixed with his own blood. 

In Hawaii we also find the myth of the direct creation of man. Here it was said  that the three great gods, Kane, Ku, and Lono, formed man of red earth and the spittle of the gods, shaping him in the likeness of Kane; and having made the image, they breathed into it, calling on it to rise, and it became alive. The ensuing episode of the creation of the first woman from one of the man’s ribs is clearly the result of missionary contact. A similar tale is given from Tahiti,  where, however, Taaroa is the creative deity.

The second type of myth, that, namely, which recounts the creation of a female human being and her marriage to her creator, is found in numerous versions. One from New Zealand runs thus:  "Some time after this Tane desired to have his mother Papa for his wife. But Papa said, ’Do not turn your inclination towards me, for evil will come to you. Go to your ancestor Mumuhango.’ So Tane took Mumuhango to wife, who brought forth the totara-tree. Tane returned to his mother dissatisfied, and his mother said, ’Go to your ancestor Hine-tu-a-maunga (= the mountain maid).’ So Tane took Hine-tu-a-maunga to wife, who conceived, but did not bring forth a child. Her offspring was the rusty water of mountains, and the monster reptiles common to mountains. Tane was displeased, and returned to his mother. Papa said to him, ’Go to your ancestor Ranga-hore.’ So Tane went, and took that female for a wife, who brought forth stone. This greatly displeased Tane, who again went back to Papa. Then Papa said, ’Go to your ancestor Ngaore (= the tender one).’ Tane took Ngaore to wife. And Ngaore gave birth to the toetoe (a species of rush-like grass). Tane returned to his mother in displeasure. She next advised him, ’Go to your ancestor Pakoti.’ Tane did as he was bid, but Pakoti only brought forth harekeke (= Phormium tenax). Tane had a great many other wives at his mother’s bidding, but none of them pleased him, and his heart was greatly troubled, because no child was born to give birth to Man; so he thus addressed his mother—’Old lady, there will never be any progeny for me.’ Thereupon Papa said, ’Go to your ancestor, Ocean, who is grumbling there in the distance. When you reach the beach at Kura-waka, gather up the earth in the form of man.’ So Tane went and scraped up the earth at Kura-waka. He gathered up the earth, the body was formed, and then the head, and the arms; then he joined on the legs, and patted down the surface of the belly, so as to give the form of man; and when he had done this, he returned to his mother, and said, ’The whole body of the man is finished.’ . . . Then he named this female form Hine-ahu-one (= the earth formed maid)."

Tane took Hine-ahu-one to wife. She first gave birth to Tiki-tohua—the egg of a bird from which have sprung all the birds of the air. After that, Tiki-kapakapa was born—a female. Then first was born for Tane a human child.

From another of the Maori tribes a briefer form is given.  Tane took a tree to wife, but his offspring were trees, not men. He went, therefore, and took mud, and mixing it with sand upon the beach of Hawaiki, he made a figure of a woman from it. When he had formed her, he laid her down, covered her with garments, breathed into her mouth and left her; but after a while he returned, and found her moving and shaking and gazing on this side and on that to observe all that she could see. Looking behind her, she beheld Tane and laughed, so he put out his hand and took her, and made her his wife.  A similar tale is found in the Society Group,  according to Which Tii made a woman from the earth at Ati-auru and dwelt with her, thus becoming the parent of a daughter, from whom and Tii-maaraatai all men are descended. Some form of this story seems also to have been current in the Marquesas,  where again it is Tiki who thus creates a wife for himself from the sands of the shore.

A belief in the direct descent of man from the gods seems not to be so clearly or explicitly stated in the Maori myths, although references to this type do occur.  In the Cook Group,  three sons of Rongo are said to be the ancestors of all the peoples of Mangaia, though we are not told of the divine origin of their wives. The Marquesans  appear also to have had a similar belief, since mankind was derived from Tii-tapu (the son of Tii, who was a descendant of Atea and Atanua) and Hina-ua.

Legends of this sort were current in Hawaii as well.  In the long cosmogonic myth or chant already mentioned in speaking of the evolutionary type of creation-myths in Hawaii, mankind, like the greater gods themselves, is the direct offspring of the Bright Light and Pleasant Quiet,  for the female being of cosmic origin thus engendered is the parent both of gods and of Kii (= Tii = Tiki), the ancestor of all men by incestuous union with his mother. Another version  of what is apparently the same myth states that La’i-la’i, the first female being, was begotten of Po or Chaos. "The King who Opens the Heavens" (evidently a sky-deity), looking down, beheld her, and descending, took her to wife, and from these two all men are derived. 

The most detailed form of the myth is, however, that from Tahiti.  Hina, the daughter-wife of Taaroa said to him, "’What shall be done, how shall man be obtained? Behold, classed or fixed are the gods of the po, or state of night, and there are no men.’ Taaroa . . . answered, ’Go on the shore to the interior, to your brother.’ Hina answered, ’I have been inland, and he is not.’ Taaroa then said, ’Go to the sea, perhaps he is on the sea; or if on the land, he will be on the land.’ . . . When the goddess had departed, Taaroa ruminated within himself as to the means by which man should be formed, and went to the land, where he assumed the appearance and substance which should constitute man. Hina, returning from her unsuccessful search . . . met him, but not knowing him said, ’Who are you?’ ’I am Tii-maaraatai,’ he replied. ’Where have you been?’ said the goddess. ’I have sought you here, and you were not; I went to the sea to look for Tii-maaraatai, and he was not.’ ’I have been here in my house, . . . ’answered Tii-maaraatai, ’and, behold you have arrived, my sister, come to me.’ Hina said, ’So it is you who are my brother; let us live together.’ They became man and wife, and the son that Hina afterward bore they called Tii. He was the first-born of mankind."

A comparison of these various myths of the origin of mankind shows the presence of no little confusion. Tiki or Tii is at once the first man, and the creator or progenitor of man; other myths do not speak of the first woman made by Tane as human, but as a deity, whose descendant, Hine-nui-a-te-po, becomes the guardian and goddess of the underworld; and many or most of the characters in the myths are nothing more than thinly disguised personifications of natural phenomena. All this obviously implies a confusion of the human and the divine—theories of actual creation, influenced by the deep-seated desire to trace ancestry back to a divine source.

A transition to the last type of myths explaining the origin of the human race is afforded, in some senses, by a legend from New Zealand which apparently ascribes an independent origin to man. According to this,  "an aquatic plant growing in swamps was the male procreating power which engendered the red clay seen in landslips, whence came the first man. This man was discovered by one of the gods before light had dawned on this world."

"Seeking, earnestly seeking in the gloom.
Searching—yes, on the coastline—
On the bounds of light of day.
Looking into night
Night had conceived
The seed of night.
The heart, the foundation of night,
Had stood forth self-existing
Even in the gloom.
It grows in gloom—
The sap and succulent parts,
The life pulsating,
And the cup of life.
The shadows screen
The faintest gleam of light.
The procreating power,
The ecstasy of life first known,
And joy of issuing forth,
From silence into sound.
Thus the progeny
Of the Great extending
Filled the heaven’s expanse;
The chorus of life
Rose and swelled
Into ecstasy,
Then rested in
Bliss of calm and quiet." 

Inasmuch as the "man" thus discovered was the grandfather of him who separated heaven and earth, it is obvious that here again we have a confusion of terms, and that this man was not regarded as an ordinary human being in any sense, for his exploits are those of gods—exploits, indeed, expressly attributed to Tane and other deities in variant myths.

In the comparison of the legends of the origin of the world it has been seen that Samoa presented special features, and in its most generally received version of the provenance of man it shows a similar individuality and offers the best form of the last of the types of myths relating to human origins. According to the Samoan tale, after Tangaroa had created the world by casting down a rock from heaven and had sent earth and creeping plants to cover it and give it shade, these vines died or were killed, and from the worms which killed them or into which their rotting stalks were changed man either developed or was made. 

"The earliest traditions of the Samoans describe a time when the heavens alone were inhabited, and the earth covered over with water. Tangaloa, the great Polynesian Jupiter, then sent down his daughter in the form of a bird called the turi (a snipe), to search for a resting-place. After flying about for a long time, she found a rock partially above the surface of the water. . . . Turi went up and told her father that she had found but one spot on which she could rest. Tangaloa sent her down again to visit the place. She went to and fro repeatedly, and every time she went up reported that the dry surface was extending on all sides. He then sent her down with some earth and a creeping plant, as all was barren rock. She continued to visit the earth and return to the skies. Next visit, the plant was spreading. Next time, it was withered and decomposing. Next visit, it swarmed with worms. And the next time, the worms had become men and women!"

It should be noted that, according to one of these versions, when man was first made or evolved from the worms, he was "formless," the meaning apparently being that he did not yet have human shape. Outside of Samoa this myth does not occur in just this form, but in Tonga we find a tale  describing the origin of man from worms scratched out of the sand by the sandpiper and left to rot in the sun. It was this bird which was the daughter of Taaroa in the Samoan myths, and which, in one version, brought to Taaroa the worms developed from the rotting vines that he might make them into man. Elsewhere in Polynesia we find little trace of this story, unless the fact that in the Society Group  the first men were said to have been originally like a ball, their legs and arms being afterward pulled out, may be taken as comparable to the Samoan idea of an originally formless being.  We shall see later that this conception of an amorphous being, afterward becoming human in shape, was also characteristic in parts of Indonesia and Australia.

Reference must be made to one other myth of the origin of mankind which, like the last, is confined to narrow limits, but whose affiliations run in quite a different direction. In the Chatham Islands (whose population, it will be remembered, represents largely a pre-Maori people) a myth has been recorded  which states that man originated miraculously from a clot of blood placed by two deities in a hollow tree. Elsewhere in Polynesia mankind is not ascribed to such a provenance, but in Samoa  it is given in several myths as the mode of origin of minor deities. It is, however, a wide-spread myth of the source of mankind or of individual human beings in various parts of Melanesia  and would thus seem to suggest an early Melanesian element in western Polynesia and the Chatham Islands. An origin-myth of a still different sort is that found in the little island of Nieue, which lies between Tonga and the Cook Group, according to which the first man was born from a tree;  and perhaps a trace of this same idea may be seen in the New Zealand myth  of Tane marrying a tree which gave birth to living beings and minor deities.

In discussing the legends relating to the origin of the world it has already been pointed out that analysis reveals complexity, and that comparison suggests relationship beyond the limits of Polynesia. It is equally clear that in the accounts given of the origin of man there is an equally complex series with similar suggestions of affiliation far afield. This diversity in type within the Polynesian area, and the wide ramification of similarities in the areas lying farther west, will, as we proceed, be found to be no less characteristic of almost all portions of Polynesian mythology.

In a previous section it has been shown how, among the Maori, an evolutionary or genealogical type of cosmogonic myth led up to the conception of a Sky Father and Earth Mother who were the parents of a great group of deities and even (in some versions) of man himself. We must follow this concept onward and trace the further experiences of the divine pair. According to the New Zealand belief, Rangi, the Sky Father, felt love for Papa-tu-a-nuku ("The Earth"), who lay beneath him, so he came down to Papa. At that time "absolute and complete darkness prevailed; there was no sun, no moon, no stars, no clouds, no light, no mist—no ripples stirred the surface of ocean; no breath of air, a complete and absolute stillness."  And Rangi set plants and trees to cover the nakedness of Papa, for her body was bare, placing insects of all kinds appropriate to the various sorts of vegetation, and giving their stations to the shellfish and the crabs and various sorts of living things. Then Rangi clave unto Papa, the Earth Mother, and held her close in his embrace, and as he lay thus prone upon Papa, all his offspring of gods which were born to him, both great and small,  were prisoned beneath his mighty form and lived cramped and herded together in darkness. "Because Rangi-nui over-laid and completely covered Papa-tua-nuku, the growth of all things could not mature, nor could anything bear fruit; . . . they were in an unstable condition, floating about the Ao-pouri [the world of darkness], and this was their appearance: some were crawling, . . . some were upright with arms held up, . . . some lying on their sides, . . . some on their backs, some were stooping, some with their heads bent down, some with legs drawn up . . . . some kneeling. . . . some feeling about in the dark . . . . they were all within the embrace of Rangi and Papa."  So for a long time the gods dwelt in darkness, but at last the desire came to them to better their condition, and for this purpose they planned to lift Rangi on high. The version of this myth of the raising of the sky, given by Sir George Grey,  is one of the classics of Polynesian mythology, and deserves to be quoted almost in full.

"Darkness then rested upon the heaven and upon the earth, and they still both clave together, for they had not yet been rent apart; and the children they had begotten were ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light; they knew that beings had multiplied and increased, and yet light had never broken upon them, but it ever continued dark.... At last the beings who had been begotten by Heaven and Earth, worn out by the continued darkness, consulted among themselves, saying, ’Let us now determine what we should do with Rangi and Papa, whether it would be better to slay them or to rend them apart.’ Then spake Tu-matauenga, the fiercest of the children of Heaven and Earth, ’It is well, let us slay them.’

"Then spake Tane-mahuta, the father of forests and of all things that inhabit them, or that are constructed from trees, ’Nay, not so. It is better to rend them apart, and to let the heaven stand far above us, and the earth lie under our feet. Let the sky become a stranger to us, but the earth remain close to us as our nursing mother.’

"The brothers all consented to this proposal, with the exception of Tawhiri-ma-tea, the father of winds and storms, and he, fearing that his kingdom was about to be overthrown, grieved greatly at the thought of his parents being torn apart. Five of the brothers willingly consented to the separation of their parents, but one of them would not agree to it. . . .

But at length their plans having been agreed on, lo, Rongo-ma-tane, the god and father of the cultivated food of man, rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth; he struggles, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next Tangaroa, the god and father of fish and reptiles rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next Haumia-tikitiki, the god and father of the food of man which springs up without cultivation, rises up and struggles, but ineffectually. Lo, then, Tu-matauenga, the god and father of fierce human beings, rises up and struggles, but he, too, fails in his efforts. Then, at last, slowly uprises Tane-mahuta, the god and father of forests, of birds, and of insects, and he struggles with his parents; in vain he strives to rend them apart with his hands and arms. Lo, he pauses; his head is now firmly planted on his mother the earth, his feet he raises up and rests against his father the skies, he strains his back and limbs with mighty effort. Now are rent apart Rangi and Papa, and with cries and groans of wo they shriek aloud, ’Wherefore slay you thus your parents? Why commit you so dreadful a crime as to slay us, as to rend your parents apart?’ But Tane-mahuta pauses not, he regards not their shrieks and cries; far, far beneath him he presses down the earth; far, far above him, he thrusts up the sky. . . .

Up to this time, the vast Heaven has still ever remained separated from his spouse the Earth. Yet their mutual love still continues—the soft warm sighs of her loving bosom still ever rise up to him, ascending from the woody mountains and valleys, and men call these mists; and the vast Heaven, as he mourns through the long nights his separation from his beloved, drops frequent tears upon her bosom, and men seeing these, term them dewdrops."

Another Maori version  introduces several other elements. "Raki, though speared by Takaroa, still adhered to the top of Papa; and Raki said to Tane and his younger brothers, ’Come and kill me, that men may live.’ Tane said, ’O old man! how shall we kill you?’ Raki said, ’O young man! lift me up above, that I may stand separate; that your mother may lie apart from me, that light may grow on you all.’ Then Tane said to Raki, ’O old man! Rehua shall carry you.’ Raki answered Tane and his younger brothers, ’O young men! do not let me be carried by your elder brothers only, lest my eyes become dim. Rather all of you carry me above, that I may be elevated’, that light May dawn on you.’ Tane said to him, ’Yes, O old man! your plan is right—that light may grow into day.’ Raki said to Tane, ’It is right, O Tane! that I be taken and killed (separated from my wife), that I may become a teacher to you and your younger brothers, and show you how to kill. If I die, then will light and day be in the World.’ Tane was pleased with the reasons why his father wished them to kill him; and hence Tane said to another branch of the offspring of Raki . . . ’Tread on Papa, tread her down; and prop up Raki, lift him up above . . . that the eyes of Raki, who is standing here, may be satisfied.’ . . . Now, this was the origin of the heaven. It was made by Tane and admired by him, and he uttered the words of his prayer to aid Rehua to carry their father above. . . . Tane now took Raki on his back; but he could put Raki no higher. Raki said to Tane, ’You too, you and your younger brother (Paia) carry me.’ Then Paia prayed his prayer, and said:

’Carry Raki on the back.
Carry Papa.
Strengthen, O big back of Paia,
Sprained with the leap at Hua-rau.’

Now, Raki was raised with the aid of this prayer, and spoke words of poroporoaki (farewell) to Papa, and said, ’O Papa! O! you remain here. This will be the (token) of my love to you; in the eighth month I will weep for you.’ Hence the origin of the dew, this; being the tears of Raki weeping for Papa. Raki again said to Papa, ’O old woman! live where you are. In winter I will sigh for you.’ This is the origin of ice. Then Papa spoke words of farewell to Raki, and said, ’O old man! go, O Raki! and in summer I also will lament for you.’ Hence the origin of mist, or the love of Papa for Raki.

"When the two had ended their words of farewell, Paia uplifted Raki, and Tane placed his toko (pole) . . . between Papa and Raki. Paia did likewise with his toko . . . . Then Raki floated upwards, and a shout of approval was uttered by those up above, who said, ’O Tu of the long face, lift up the mountain.’ Such were the words shouted by the innumerable men (beings) from above in approval of the acts of Tane and Paia; but that burst of applause was mostly in recognition of Tane’s having disconnected the heaven, and propped up its sides, and made them stable. He had stuffed up the cracks and chinks, so that Raki was completed and furnished, light arose and day began." 

Similar but briefer versions of this same myth are found in the Chatham Islands,  where the raising of the heavens was done by a being called "Heaven-Propper," the sky being lifted upon ten pillars, set one above the other. In the Cook Group,  the raiser of the heavens was Ru. Originally the heavens were low, so low that they rested on the broad leaves of certain plants, and in this narrow space all the people of this world were pent up, but Ru sent for the gods of night and the gods of day to assist him in his work of raising the sky. He prayed to them, "Come, all of you, and help me to lift up the heavens." And when they came in answer to his call, he chanted the following song:

"O Son! O Son! Raise my son
Raise my son!
Lift the Universe! Lift the Heavens!
The Heavens are lifted,
It is moving!
It moves,
It moves!"

The heavens were raised accordingly, and Ru then chanted the following song to secure the heavens in their place:

"Come, O Ru-taki-nuhu,
Who has propped up the Heavens.
The Heavens were fast, but are lifted.
The Heavens were fast, but are lifted.
Our work is completed." 

This conception, that the sky was originally low, resting on the leaves of plants, is also found in the Society Group,  where Ruu is again the deity by whose aid the task of raising the heavens was accomplished. It likewise occurs in Samoa,  and in somewhat similar form in the Union Group,  whereas in Hawaii the incident of the separation of heaven and earth is referred to but vaguely and seems to play a very insignificant part in the beliefs of the people. 

It will be observed that the idea of a Sky Father and Earth Mother, so characteristic in New Zealand, is lacking in central Polynesia. What is said is merely that once the sky was very low, and that one of the deities raised it to its present position. Now this form of the myth appears in the New Hebrides,  where the heaven was said originally to have been so low that a woman struck it with her pestle as she was pounding food, whereupon she angrily told the sky to rise higher, and it did so. Almost identically the same type appears in the Philippines,  and the simple theme of raising the heavens, which once were low, is frequent in several other parts of Indonesia  as well as in the intervening area of Micronesia.  It would seem, therefore, that the Maori form of the myth represents a special or locally developed form of this widespread theme, which reaches back almost without a break from central Polynesia to Indonesia.

In the foregoing legends of the raising of the sky this is accomplished by one or other of the gods, and it is clearly a cosmogonic feature, especially well brought out in New Zealand, as will be shown presently when the myths of the origin of the sun, moon, and stars are considered. The episode, however, appears in parts of Polynesia in quite another aspect, i. e. as one of the exploits of the hero Maui,  but since the Maui cycle will be treated in a special chapter, discussion of the place of this episode in it may best be postponed for the present. Nevertheless, it should here be noted that whereas in Hawaii the theme occurs only in connexion with Maui, in New Zealand it is known solely as a cosmogonic myth, while both forms are found in central Polynesia.

The myths of origin relating to the heavens and the earth having been outlined, there remain those regarding the provenance of the sun, moon, and stars, the sea, and other natural features. Turning again to the Maori account of the separation of Rangi and Papa, it appears that Tane’s efforts did not cease with the parting of his parents, but that he sought to clothe and beautify them. "Tane saw that his father Raki was naked; so he went and obtained kura (red) to make his father look comely; but this did not suffice. He then went to bring the stars from . . . ’The Mat of Dread’ and ’The Mat of the Sacred Holding’. . . stars were the fastenings of these mats. . . . Tane placed the stars on Raki in the daytime, but they were not beautiful; but at night his father Raki looked grand." 

The sun and moon in the Maori myth seem generally to be regarded as Rangi’s offspring  who were later placed for eyes in the sky,  and similar beliefs prevailed in the Society Group  and in Samoa.  In the Cook Group the sun and moon were said to be eyes of Vatea,  and other versions  from this area give further details. According to these, Vatea and Tonga-iti (or Tangaroa, by one version) quarrelled as to the parentage of the first-born of Papa, each claiming to be the father, and to settle the dispute the child was cut in two, half being given to Vatea and half to Tonga-iti. Vatea took the upper portion, which was his, and threw it into the sky, where it became the sun, while Tonga-iti allowed his share, the lower half, to remain on the ground. Later, imitating Vatea, he also tossed his portion into the heavens, where it became the moon, but, owing to the fact that the blood had drained out of it and that it had partly decomposed, it shone with a paler light.  The simple statement that the sun and moon were made by the deity is found in the Society Group,  and little more seems to be recorded from Hawaii. 

The origin of the sea, a feature of the environment of necessity particularly prominent for an island people, has already been mentioned in passing, but a few further points may well be added here. The conception of a primeval sea has been shown to be especially prevalent in central and western Polynesia, where we also find belief in the origin of the ocean from the sweat of Taaroa in his labours of creation.  A variant appears in Samoa, where the sea is; said to have arisen from the bursting of the ink-sack of the primeval octopus,  but in the Marquesas,  on the other hand, it is stated that the ocean was derived from the amniotic liquor when Atanua, the wife of the Heaven-Deity Atea, suffered a miscarriage. One other Samoan myth fragment relating to the origin of the sea is of interest as evidencing the Melanesian influence to be found on this western margin of Polynesia. According to this tale, the sea was originally concealed and kept shut up, but was later let out, the result being a flood.  More detailed versions of this incident are wide-spread in Melanesia,  whence this Samoan fragment was probably derived.

The evolutionary growth and origin of plants and trees in Hawaiian mythology has already been outlined, and Rangi’s setting of plants and trees upon Papa in the Maori myth has also been noted,  but some versions include a curious incident. According to these forms of the myth,  Tane planted trees upon his mother, Earth, after the raising of Rangi. At first he set them with their heads (i. e. their roots) up and their feet down, but since he did not like their appearance he reversed them, and placed them with their heads in the earth and their feet up. With this he was much pleased, and so they grow to this day. The unusual idea of trees having formerly been upside down may perhaps be connected with the frequent Indonesian  and Micronesian  theme of the great tree hanging upside down in the sky, by whose branches men passed back and forth to the upper world.

The importance of flood-myths in Polynesia was apparently not very great. Deluge-episodes, of course, do occur; but so far as the published material goes, the floods referred to are merely incidents—and, as a whole, minor incidents—in other stories. For instance, Tawhaki  is said to have caused a deluge by stamping on the floor of heaven, which cracked so that the waters flowed through and covered the earth;  or, again, his mother is recorded to have wept at the actions of her son, her tears falling to earth and flooding it, thus overwhelming all men;  while another version  declares that Tawhaki, wishing to be avenged for the attempt to kill him, called upon the gods to send a deluge to overwhelm the world after he and his friend had taken refuge on the top of a mountain. Of a similar type are the references in Hawaiian mythology to the "Sea of Kahinalii." According to this tale,  Pele, the fire-goddess, once lived far to the south-west, but when her husband deserted her, she set out to try to find him. To aid her in the search, her parents gave her the sea to go with her and bear her canoes, and as she journeyed she poured forth the sea from her head, the waters rising until only the tops of the highest mountains were visible, but later retiring to their present level.

A somewhat more elaborate flood-myth is reported from Raiatea in the Society Group.  According to this version, a fisherman once got his hook entangled in the hair of Rua-haku, a sea-god, who war, asleep at the bottom of the sea, but when the man tried to pull in what he fancied to be a great fish, he so enraged the deity that he was about to destroy his disturber. The fisherman, however, begged for mercy, and the god finally agreed to spare him, but insisted on revenging himself upon the rest of the world. By Rua-haku’s advice, the fisherman took refuge on an islet with a friend, a hog, a dog, and a couple of hens, and the sea then began to rise, continuing so to do until all the world was overflowed, and all the people had perished, after which the waters retired to their former level.

In Mangaia, in the Cook Group, a tale is told  of a conflict between Aokeu and Ake, a sea-deity. The two quarrelled as to which was the more powerful, and Ake, to show his might, caused the sea to rise and dash upon the land in great waves, while Aokeu made rain to fall in floods, so that, between the two, the island was covered, except for a small bit which protruded. Rangi (not the deity, apparently), the first king of Mangaia, took refuge on this fragment of dry land, and, alarmed lest he should be drowned, prayed to Rongo to aid him, whereupon the latter deity forced the two contestants to cease their display of power, and the deluge subsided. 

The two legends which have been recorded from Samoa are of a somewhat different type in that they are more a part of the cosmogonic tales. According to one version,  in early times there was a flood which destroyed all beings, except one man, Pili, and his wife, who took refuge on a rock, these survivors subsequently becoming the ancestors of mankind. Another form of the myth  states that when the flood came, Seve and a man called Pouniu alone saved themselves by swimming. Tangaloa saw them from the sky, and pitying their plight sent down two men from the heavens with hooks, who drew Samoa from under the sea to serve as a refuge for the two who were thus rescued.

Although there may be some question whether the end of the Raiatea story shows traces of missionary influence, all these flood-tales are probably aboriginal. As much cannot be said, however, for the versions from New Zealand,  the Marquesas,  and Hawaii,  in all of which the Biblical parallel, extending even to names and details, is far too close to permit us to regard the tales as other than local adaptations of missionary teaching.

CHAPTER II. THE MAUI CYCLE

OF all the myths from the Polynesian area, probably none have been more frequently quoted than those which recount the deeds and adventures of the demigod Maui. Among the Polynesians themselves almost every group had its own versions of the tales, and the large number of variants, many of which have fortunately been recorded, make the Maui cycle one of the most important for the study of this whole area.

Maui, the hero of these tales, is generally described as one of a series of brothers, the number varying from three in Rarotonga to six in some of the New Zealand versions, although in Mangaia he is spoken of as having no brother.  As in hero tales generally, he is usually the youngest child, and in New Zealand especially the older Mauis are described as stupid or forgetful, while Maui, the hero, is clever or mischievous.  Thus the elder brothers used spears without barbs and eel-pots without trap-doors, and wondered why they were unsuccessful; but the youngest invented the barb on the spear and the trap-door for the eel-pot, and so succeeded where they failed. These two elements, i. e. that the hero is one of a number of brothers and that the others are stupid or foolish while he is wise and clever, are very strikingly developed in the Melanesian myths,  which often record two brothers and in which there is sometimes a greater antithesis of good and evil than is. implied in the Polynesian myths. In the New Hebrides and vicinity, indeed, the hero at times appears under the name of Maui.  While in the non-Maori parts of the Polynesian area

Maui’s birth is generally not dissimilar to that of his other brothers, in New Zealand the hero is declared to have been an abortion, which his mother wrapped up in her apron or topknot, and either abandoned in the bush or threw into the sea.  Although thus deserted by his parent, Maui survived,  for the unformed child was tended by supernatural beings and reared to manhood, some versions declaring that he was taken up into the sky-world. There he grew up and engaged in a conflict with Maru (by one account, an elder brother)  whose crops he ruined by sending rain or snow upon them, for which Maru revenged himself by causing frost to kill Maui’s crops, whereupon, in retaliation, the hero slew him.  Having at length reached maturity, Maui determined to seek out his parents and brothers, and came upon the latter engaged in playing at niti or teka. In this game reeds, fern stalks, or spears are cast so as to rebound from a small hillock of earth and slide along the ground, the winner being he whose niti goes farthest. After the brothers had hurled their spears, Maui asked to be allowed to throw, and as he did so he shouted his name, but the others at once disclaimed him and said that he had no right to be called Maui. He asked them, however, to summon their mother that she might decide, yet when she came, she at once declared that he was no child of hers and bade him begone. Maui next asked her to recall her past, and then she remembered that which she had cast away. Maui declared this to have been his origin and that his ancestors had saved him and brought him up. His mother finally recognized him, declared him her youngest son, and made him her favourite.  This episode of the return of the abandoned child is strikingly parallel to tales current in Melanesia,  where a deserted child joins others who are playing a game and is ultimately recognized by his parent. So far as reported, this incident does not occur elsewhere in Polynesia, except in Nieue. 

Of the many exploits of Maui three seem to be most widely spread, and these may, therefore, be first considered. They are fishing up the land, snaring the sun, and the quest of fire. As an example of the first of these feats we may take one of the New Zealand versions  Maui had an ancestress to whom it was the duty of the elder brothers to carry food, but they neglected her and ate it themselves. Maui offered to take their place, but when he came to his ancestress, he found her ill, one half of her body being already dead, whereupon he wrenched off her lower jaw, made from it a fish-hook, which he concealed about him, and then returned to his home. His brothers did not like to have him accompany them on their fishing trips, but Maui hid in their canoe, and when they were out at sea next day, he disclosed himself. At first they were going to put him ashore, but finally they agreed to let him stay, since they thought that he could not fish if they did not give him a hook. Nothing dismayed, Maui took out his magic hook, struck his nose with his fist until it bled, and baited his hook with the blood.  Lowering his line, he soon got a tremendous bite and at last hauled in the land, like a great fish, from the bottom of the sea. Telling his brothers not to cut it up, he went away, but they disobeyed him and began to hack with their knives, thus causing the great fish to struggle, break the canoe, and kill the brothers, while, owing to the cuts made by them, the land became rough and rugged. In some versions of the myth the land so hauled up was that of Tonga; in others, it was New Zealand, which some of the Maori called Te-ika-a-ma-ui, "The Fish of Maui."’ According to another account,  the magic fish-hook was made from the jaw-bone of Maui’s oldest son, whom Maui had killed for this purpose, the bait being the ear of this same child; and for three moons he laboured to drag up the great fish with the aid of Rupe, a pigeon, to whom he gave one end of the line.

It is in New Zealand that the story of this exploit of the hero is told with the greatest wealth of detail, although Hawaii also furnishes versions nearly as full.  Here the reason is given why the brothers did not like to have Maui go fishing with them. He was not a very good fisherman, but was full of mischievous tricks by which he secured the catch actually taken by his brothers. When one of them began to haul in a prize, Maui would cry, "Look out, we have both caught the same fish," and would rapidly pull in his line, so man?uvring as to foul that of the other. As the fish was brought near the canoe, he would then slip his hook toward the head of the fish and flip it over into the canoe, thus causing his brother’s line to slacken, and then, holding up the fish, he would say, "Oh, you lost your fish. Why didn’t you pull steadily?"  When at last the brothers allowed the tricky fellow to accompany them again, he baited his magic fish-hook with a bird, sacred to his mother, Hine; but the fish which he caught was so huge that he asked his brothers to help him haul it in, and as the land began to emerge from the sea, he cautioned them not to look back or the prize would be lost. One of the brothers disobeyed, and at once the line broke and the land also, so that, instead of a great single mass, it was fractured into a group of islands. Central Polynesia and Tonga  present, so far as published materials go, much briefer accounts and in almost all cases attribute the same feat to Tangaroa also or some other deity or demigod. The episode seems to be but little known in Samoa.  There it is attributed solely to Tangaroa and is a variant of the story of how, in the beginning, he cast a rock down from the sky to serve as an abiding place for his daughter, the snipe, in the world of waters. From the evidence it would appear that the episode was one which was a part of the older structure of Polynesian mythology and which in the central and western areas had been overlaid by later elements. Outside of the Polynesian region comparable myths have so far been noted in certain of the New Hebrides,  Fotuna,  Union Group, Gilbert Islands,  and New Britain. 

A Hawaiian version  of the snaring of the sun may be taken as an example of Maui’s next exploit. Maui’s mother was much troubled by the shortness of the day, occasioned by the rapid movement of the sun; and since it was impossible to dry properly the sheets of tapa used for clothing, the hero resolved to cut off the legs of the sun so that he could not travel so fast. His mother, accordingly, made strong ropes for him and sent him to his blind old grandmother to get added assistance. He found her cooking bananas, and as she laid them down one after the other, Maui stole them. At length discovering her loss, but unable to see the culprit, she sniffed about angrily until she smelt a man, whereupon she asked who it was, and when Maui told her that he was her grandson, she forgave him and presented him with a magic club to aid him in his attack on the sun. Maui now went off eastward to where the sun climbed daily out of the underworld, and as the luminary came up, the hero noosed his legs one after the other and tied the ropes strongly to great trees. Fairly caught, the sun could not get away, and Maui gave him a tremendous beating with his magic weapon. To save his life, the sun begged for mercy, and on promising to go more slowly ever after, was released from his bonds.

Substantially the same form of the story is found in New Zealand.  Maui "observed that the time between the sun’s rising and setting was very short, and he said to his brothers, ’Let us tie the sun, that it may not go so fast, that man may have time to provide food for himself.’ But his brothers said, ’Man cannot go near to the sun on account of the heat.’ Maui said, ’You have seen the many acts that I have performed. I have taken the form of a bird, and again resumed that of a man, while you have ever had the form of men. And now, my brothers, I can do what I propose, and even greater acts than this.’ His brothers consented, and commenced to plait ropes. . . . When these had been made Maui took his weapon, made of the jaw-bone of his progenitor . . . and his brothers took their weapons and the ropes, and they . . . journeyed till they had got near where the sun came up. Maui, addressing his brothers, said, ’Beware you do not surprise and unnecessarily startle the sun; but let his head and shoulders be fully within the noose, and be ready when I call to pull the opposite ends of the ropes. When the sun is caught, I will rise and beat him. But let the ropes be securely fastened that he may be held for some time. And O young men! do not heed his cry of pain. Then we will let him go.’

"The sun came up like blazing fire, and when his head and shoulders had entered the noose Maui encouraged his brothers to action by saying ’Now pull.’ They did so, and the sun drew his limbs together with a twitch. Maui rushed at him with his weapon, and scarce had the sun time to call before Maui was belabouring him, and continued to so do for some time. When they let him go he went away crippled, and in the anguish of his pain he uttered another of his names, Tama-nui-a-te-ra (great child of the sun), and said, ’Why am I so beaten by you, O man! I will have my revenge on you for having dared to beat the great child of the sun.’ He departed on his way, but was unable to travel so fast as before."

It will be noted that this and other New Zealand versions,  like all those so far recorded from the rest of Polynesia,  lack the incident of the visit to the blind grandmother. This episode of the stealing of food from a blind person is, however, widely current in Polynesia, but is, as a rule, told in connexion with another hero, Tawhaki, whose adventures and relationship will be considered later. On the other hand, it is not uncommon in Melanesia,  and is also found in Micronesia  and Indonesia.  In the Society Group a somewhat different aspect is given to the story by the fact that the purpose was not to make the sun go more slowly, but to bring it nearer, so that it might more quickly heat the stones that Maui used in cooking his food.  In Samoa the adventure, albeit in a somewhat abbreviated form, is attributed not to Maui but to the Sun-Child, some of whose other adventures are widely spread in Polynesia. The third of the great exploits usually accredited to Maui is that of the fire-quest. As with much of the Maui cycle, the fuller versions have been best preserved in New Zealand.  According to these, Maui and his brothers lived with their mother, but every morning she disappeared before they awoke, and none knew whither she went. Determining to solve the mystery, Maui stopped up every chink and cranny in the house, thus preventing the morning light from coming in,  so that his mother overslept, and Maui, waking in time, saw her leave the house, pull up a clump of reeds or grass, and disappear down the opening thus revealed. Adopting his favourite disguise of a bird, he followed, flying down the aperture: to the world below, where he revealed himself to his parent and demanded food. The fire being out, his mother was about to send a servant to secure some, when Maui volunteered to bring it and accordingly went to the house of his ancestor Mafuike, an old woman who was the owner and guardian of fire. Of her he begged a brand, and she gave him one of her fingers, in which fire was concealed. He started away, but when out of sight, quenched it in a stream and returned for more. She gave him another finger, which he extinguished in a similar manner, and thus got from her in succession all her fingers and toes, except the last, with which, in anger, she set the world afire.  Maui fled, but was pursued by the flames, which threatened to consume everything, so that in distress he called upon rain, snow, and hail to aid him, and they, coming to his assistance, succeeded in putting out the conflagration and thus saved the world. In some versions Maui then returned to this world, having conquered the fire-deity; but in others the latter threw the last of the fire into various trees, which since then have preserved the germ of fire, which can be called forth by friction. Similar tales have been recorded from several of the other Polynesian groups.  The practical absence of this myth from the Society Group is probably due to the very small amount of myth material so far published from there; on the other hand, the whole Maui cycle is apparently less important in this Group than elsewhere.

The various versions of this legend which have been recorded in the Polynesian area present minor differences which would seem to be significant, and a consideration of some of the separate incidents of this myth may, therefore, be instructive. In the first place, the idea that fire was originally obtained from the underworld (a feature found in all these Polynesian versions) is one which also occurs in Melanesia;  although, on the other hand, a more usual explanation in this area is that fire was either brought from another land by some animal after several unsuccessful attempts or was accidentally discovered.  In the Polynesian versions of Maui’s exploit the method by which his parent and he reached t