hua

Gb7-26

1. Testicle. 2. Figuratively: son, hua tahi, only son; fruits of the earth; to grow well (of fruits). 3. To cause a fight, a quarrel. Hua-ai, generation, as lineage of direct descendents; contemporaries. Huahua, coccyx of bird, 'parson's nose': huahua moa, huahua uha. Huataru, a creeper (Chenopodium ambiguum). Vanaga.

1. The same; ki hua, again, to continue, to strain, to struggle, to move, to repeat, over and above. Mq.: hua, the same, to return, to recommence.  2. To bloom, to sprout; flower, fruit (huaa); huaa tae oko, huaa vahio, young fruit; hua atahi, only son; huahaga, fruit; mei te huahaga o tokoe kopu, the fruit of thy body; tikea huahaga, deceptive appearance. P Pau.: ua, to be born; huahaga, lineage. Mgv.: hua, to produce (said of trees, grain, etc.), blooming time of flowers, abundance of fruit. Mq.: hua, to produce, to bear fruit. Ta.: ua, to sprout. Huahua. 1. Tailless fowl. 2. Vein, tendon, line. 3. Mgv.: huahua, pimples covering the face. Ta.: huahua, id. Mq.: hua, tubercules. Sa.: fuafua, abscess on hand or feet. Ma.: huahua, small pimples. Pau.: Hua-gakau, rupture. Ta.: áau, entrails. Sa.: ga'au, id. Ma.: ngakau, id. Churchill.

1. Fruit. 2. Egg. 3. Tā hua = 'genealogical writing' or 'same writing'. Fischer.

... Now every morning at daybreak, Taranga used to wake up before her children and leave the house, and vanish until night. The older brothers were used to this, they knew that their mother was there at night but gone in the morning, but little Maui was not used to it and he found it very annoying. At first he thought in the mornings, 'Well, perhaps she has only gone to prepare some food for us.' But no, she really was gone, she was far away.

In the evening, when her children were all singing and dancing in the meeting house as usual, she used to return. And after the dancing she called young Maui to her sleeping mat, and this happened every night. And as soon as the daylight came she disappeared again.

One day Maui asked his brothers to tell him where their mother and father lived. He said he wanted to visit them. They said they did not know. 'How can we tell?' they said. 'We don't know whether they live up there somewhere, or down below, or over there.' 'Well, never mind,' said Maui, 'I'll find them for myself.'

'Nonsense,' they said, 'how can you tell where they are, you, the youngest of all of us, when we ourselves don't know? After that first night when you turned up in the meeting house and made yourself known to us all, you know that our mother slept here every night, and as soon as the sun rose she went away, and she came back at evening, and this is how it always is. How can we tell where she goes?' 

Now when Maui had this conversation with his brothers he had already discovered something for himself. During the previous night, as his mother and brothers were all sleeping, he had crept out and stolen his mother's skirt, her woven belt, and her warm, feathered cloak, and had hidden them. Then he had taken various garments and stopped up all the chinks around the doorway of the house and of its single wooden window, so that the first light of day would not get in and Taranga would not wake in time to go. When that was done he could not sleep. He was afraid his mother would wake up in the dark and spoil the trick. But Taranga did sleep on.

When the first faint light appeared at the far end of the house, Maui could see the legs of all the other people sleeping, and his mother was sleeping too. Then the sun came up, and Taranga stirred, and partly woke. 'What kind of night is this,' she wondered, 'that lasts so long?' But because it was dark in the house she dozed off again. At last she woke up properly, and knew that something was wrong. She threw off the cloak that covered her and jumped up, with nothing on, and went round looking for her skirt and belt. Little Maui pretended to be fast asleep.

Taranga rushed to the door, and the window beside it, and pulled out all the things that Maui had used to stop them up. When she saw that the sun was already in the sky she muttered some angry things and hurried out, holding in front of her a piece of old flax cloak that Maui had used to stop up the door. Away she ran, crying and whimpering in being so badly treated by her children.

No sooner was she out of the house than little Maui was on his knees behind the sliding door, which she had closed behind her as she left. He was watching to see which way she went. Not far away he saw her stop and pull up a clump of rushes. There was a hole under it, which she dropped into. She pulled the rushes into place behind her, and was gone. Maui slipped out and ran as fast as he was able to the clump of rushes. He pulled it and it came away, and he felt a wind against his face as he looked through the hole. Looking down, he saw another world, with trees and the ocean, and fires burning, and men and women walking about. He put the rushes back, and returned to the house and woke his brothers, who were still fast asleep.

'Come on, come on! Wake up!' he cried. 'Here we are, tricked by our mother again!' So they all got up, and realised from the height of the sun that they had overslept. That was the day when Maui asked them to tell him where his parents lived. He did not admit what he had seen that morning. And they said they did not know, and he would never know either ...