1. Cut short, shortened, amputated; at an end, ceased; anything cut off short; short, brief, quick (rare). Ua muku ko'u lole, my dress is shortened. He kanaka wāwae muku, a person with amputated foot. Huli muku a'ela nā wa'a, the canoes turned sharply. (PPN mutu.) 2. A measure of length from fingertips of one hand to the elbow of the other arm, when both arms are extended to the side. 3. Broken section of a wave or crest. See lala 1. 4. Same as Mumuku, a wind. 5. Thirtieth night of the moon, when it has entirely disappeared (muku). 6. Starboard ends of 'iako (outrigger booms), hence starboard sides of a canoe. Wehewehe.

"Maui was the fifth and youngest of his parents' sons, yet when he was born his brothers knew nothing of it. They first learned that they had a brother when he was discovered one night standing behind them in the great meeting house.

Everyone was present, the four brothers, their mother Taranga, and all the relations, and there was dancing going on, when little Maui crept into the house unseen, and went and sat behind his brothers. When it came to their turn to dance, and their mother stood them up and counted the so as to be ready, he stood up with them.

'One, that's Maui mua; two, that's Maui roto; three, that's Maui taha; four, that's Maui pae', she said; these names mean Maui the first, Maui the middle, Maui the side, and Maui the edge. Then she saw this other child standing with them, and cried out, 'Hullo, where did this one come from?'

'I'm your child too', Maui replied. So she counted them again and said, 'Oh no, there ought to be only four of you. This is the first I've seen of you.'

And so there was a scene, with little Maui and the old woman arguing about it in the middle of the rows of dancers. In the end she became annoyed with him. 'Now, come on, out of the house!' she said. 'You are no child of mine, you belong to someone else. Go home!'

But little Maui stood up for himself. 'Well then, I'd better go, I suppose', he said. 'Since you say so, I must be someone else's child. But I did think I was yours, because I know I was born at the edge of the sea, and you cut off a tuft of your hair and wrapped me in it and threw me in the waves. After that the seaweed took care of me and I drifted about in the sea, wrapped in long tangles of kelp, until a breeze blew me on shore again, and some jelly-fish rolled themself around me to protect me on the sandy beach. Clouds of flies settled on me and I might have been eaten up by the maggots; flocks of seabirds came, and I might have been pecked to pieces. But then my great-ancestor Tama nui ki te rangi arrived. He saw the clouds of flies and all the birds, and he came and pulled away the jelly-fish, and there was I, a human being! Well, he picked me up and washed me and took me home, and hung me in the rafters in the warmth of the fire, and he saved my life. And I grew, and  eventually I heard about the dancing you have here in this house, and that is what brought me here tonight.'

Now Taranga listened to all this in amazement. For in the custom of our people, if a child was born before it finished growing in its mother's womb and died without knowing any of the pleasures of life, it was supposed to be buried with special prayers and ceremonies, otherwise it became a kind of evil spirit, always doing mischief to the human race and hurting them out of spite, because of having missed the happiness that they enjoy. All the evil spirits had a beginning of this sort. So Maui was a little demi-god of mischief. The story he had told was true, and as his mother listened she remembered it all.

'From the time I was in your womb,' Maui went on, 'I have known the names of these children of yours. Listen,' he said as he pointed to his brothers in turn. 'You are Maui mua, you are Maui roto, you are Maui taha, and you are Maui pae. And as for me, I am Maui potiki, Maui-the-last-born. And here I am.'

When he had finished, Taranga had to wipe her eyes because there were tears in them, and she said: 'You are indeed my lastborn son. You are the child of my old age. When I had you, no one knew, and what you have been saying is the truth. Well, as you were formed out of my topknot you can be Maui tikitiki a Taranga.'

So that became his name, meaning Maui-formed-in-the-topknot-of-Taranga. And this is very strange, because women in those days did not have topknots. The topknot was the most sacred part of a person, and only men had them."

(Antony Alpers, Maori Myths & Tribal Legends.)