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... 'Wait on,' said Maui, 'I haven't
tried my line yet.' 'Where did
you get a hook?' they asked.
'Oh, I have one of my own', said
Maui. So the brothers knew for
certain now that there was going to
be trouble, as they had feared. They
told him to hurry and throw his line
over, and one of them started
bailing. Because of the weight of
the fish they were carrying, water
was coming in at the sides. Maui
produced his hook from underneath
his
maro,
a magnificent, fishing hook it was,
with a shank made of paua
shell that glistened in the
sunlight. Its point was made of the
jawbone of his ancestress, and it
was ornamented at the top of the
shank with hair pulled from the tail
of a dog. He snooded it to a line
that was lying in the canoe.
Boastful Maui behaved as if it were
a very ordinary sort of fish-hook,
and flashed it carelessly. Then he
asked his brothers for some bait.
But they were sulking, and had no
wish to help him. They said he could
not have any of their bait. So
Maui atamai doubled his fist and
struck his nose a blow, and smeared
the hook with blood, and threw it
overboard.
'Be quiet now,' he told his
brothers. 'If you hear me talking to
myself don't say a word, or you will
make my line break.' And as he paid
out the line he intoned this
karakia, that calls on the
north-east and south-east winds:
Blow gently, whakarua, / blow
gently, mawake, / my line let
it pull straight, / my line let it
pull strong.
My line it is pulled, / it has
caught, / it has come.
The land is gained, / the land is in
the hand, / the land long waited
for, / the boasting of Maui, / his
great land / for which he went to
sea, / his boasting, it is caught.
A spell for the drawing up of the
world.
The brothers had no idea what Maui
was up to now, as he paid out his
line. Down, down it sank, and when
it was at the bottom Maui lifted it
slightly, and it caught on something
which at once pulled very hard.
Maui pulled also, and hauled in a
little of his line. The canoe heeled
over, and was shipping water fast.
'Let it go!' cried the frightened
brothers, but Maui answered with the
words that are now a proverb: 'What
Maui has got in his hand he cannot
throw away.'
'Let go?' he cried. 'What did I come
for but to catch fish?' And he went
on hauling in his line, the canoe
kept taking water, and his brothers
kept bailing frantically, but Maui
would not let go.
Now Maui's hook had caught in the
barge-boards of the house of
Tonganui, who lived at the bottom of
that part of the sea and whose name
means Great South; for it was as far
to the south that the brothers had
paddled from their home. And Maui
knew what it was that he had caught,
and while he hauled at his line he
was chanting the spell that goes:
O Tonganui / why do you hold so
stubbornly there below?
The power of Muri's jawbone is at
work on you, / you are coming, / you
are caught now, / you are coming up,
/ appear, appear.
Shake yourself, / grandson of
Tangaroa the little.
The fish came near the surface then,
so that Maui's line was slack for a
moment, and he shouted to it not to
get tangled.
But then the fish plunged down
again, all the way to the bottom.
And Maui had to strain, and haul
away again. And at the height of all
this excitement his belt worked
loose, and his maro fell off
and he had to kick it from his feet.
He had
to do the rest with nothing on.
The brothers of Maui sat trembling
in the middle of the canoe, fearing
for their lives. For now the water
was frothing and heaving, and great
hot bubbles were coming up, and
steam, and Maui was chanting the
incantation called Hiki,
which makes heavy weights light.
At length there appeared beside them
the gable and thatched roof of the
house of Tonganui, and not only the
house, but a huge piece of the land
attached to it. The brothers wailed,
and beat their heads, as they saw
that Maui had fished up land, Te
Ika a Maui, the fish of Maui.
And there were houses on it, and
fires burning, and people going
about their daily tasks. Then Maui
hitched his line round one of the
paddles laid under a pair of
thwarts, and picked up his maro,
and put it on again.
'Now while I'm away,' he said, 'show
some common sense and don't be
impatient. Don't eat food until I
come back, and whatever you do don't
start cutting up the fish until I
have found a priest and made an
offering to the gods, and completed
all the necessary rites. When I get
back it will be all right to cut him
up, and we'll share him out equally
then. What we cannot take with us
will keep until we come back for it.'
Maui then returned to their village.
But as soon as his back was turned
his brothers did the very things
that he had told them not to. They
began to eat food, which was a
sacrilege because no portion had yet
been offered to the gods. And they
started to scale the fish and cut
bits off it.
When they did this, Maui had not yet
reached the sacred place and the
presence of the gods. Had he done
so, all the male and female deities
would have been appeased by the
promise of portions of the fish, and
Tangaroa would have been content. As
it was they were angry, and they
caused the fish of Maui to writhe
and lash about like any other fish.
That is the reason why this land,
Aotearoa, is now so rough and
mountainous and much of it so
unuseful to man. Had the brothers
done as Maui told them it would have
lain smooth and flat, an example to
the world of what good land should
be. But as soon as the sun rose
above the horizon the writhing fish
of Maui became solid underfoot, and
could not be smoothed out again.
This act of Maui's, that gave our
people the land on which we live,
was an event next in greatness to
the separation of the Sky and Earth
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