01/07/2025
M Ā U I – T E T Ī M A T A N G A
🌌Pt 1 (Scroll halfway if you just want the purākau 😆) - The early days
📖 🌊 I’ve been watching Moana with my pēpi lately (okay i'll be honest… I’m just as into it as she is 😅) and it got me thinking, who really was Māui in our stories here in Aotearoa? Is he the same Māui we see across the Pacific? ... (obviously its not Dwayne the rock Johnson - but seriously a great fictional maui 🙌, anyhow I digress.) But what do our own kōrero actually say? So I went running for answer's and this is where the breadcrumb trail led me 🤓✨
✍️ One of the earliest written records of Māui’s full life in Aotearoa I could find comes from Ko ngā mahi a ngā tūpuna Māori (1854), collected by Sir George Grey, who recorded traditional narratives from tohunga and kaumātua of iwi including Te Arawa and Ngāti Raukawa.
It tells us Māui was born prematurely, too early to survive or so they thought. His mother, Taranga, believing he wouldn’t live, wrapped him in a tress of her tikitiki or her sacred topknot and cast him into the ocean. From this moment came his full name: Māui tikitiki a Taranga Māui, wrapped in the topknot of Taranga.
🌊 But instead of dying, the ocean carried him. The sea became his cradle. Eventually he was found by Tama nui ki te rangi, a celestial being described as his grandfather. Though his own whakapapa is largely lost to us, his actions are clear and he raises Māui not just in body, but in spirit. Under his guidance, Māui is taught sacred knowledge, the hidden arts of transformation, and the wisdom of the wānanga. It’s here that Māui takes shape. A figure who is not quite atua, not quite tangata, but something powerful and in between.
🏠 When Māui finally returns to his people, he does it in definite Māui fashion - sneaky, bold, and full of intention. One night, he slips into his whānau’s whare and sits quietly by the fire behind his brothers. Taranga sees him and is startled, who is this strange child? But Māui speaks. He names her. He names himself. He lays out their whakapapa, and in doing so, he reveals the truth: Nāhau anō au — I am yours.
⚡️ This moment already tells us who Māui is. Clever. Brave. Unconventional. Born from rejection, carried by the ocean, raised by the sky. He walks the line between worlds and bends the rules when they don’t serve the truth. And still, he returns home, not to seek revenge, but to reconnect.
🐟 Later, Māui’s deeds grow even greater and one of the most famous and a personal favourite is when he hauls up Te Ika a Māui, the great fish we now call the North Island. This kōrero is beautifully recorded by Wiremu Grace, who drew from Te Arawa and Ngāti Raukawa oral traditions and shared the account through Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI). It’s also extensively preserved in the sacred text The Lore of the Whare Wānanga, grounded in Ngāti Kahungunu whakapapa and passed down by tohunga like Nepia Pōhuhu. And if you listen closely, I reckon you’ll catch a hint of Tūhoe’s celestial spark in there too... So on that note, here’s my storyteller spin on an epic tale 💫📖
✨ 🚣 T E I K A A M Ā U I
They say Māui wasn’t left behind this time, lucky for him it was Māui mua, the eldest of the brothers, who insisted he be brought along. "Let your younger brother go with you," he said, overruling the others. They had called him mischievous, unpredictable, but this time, Māui tikitiki a Taranga would be part of the voyage.
They say Māui was never one to ask for permission. That mischief in his bones didn’t come from nowhere, it was gifted to him by the ocean, by the stars, by the ones who raised him between worlds.
So when the decision was made to go fishing, Māui's presence was debated. His brothers doubted him, but Māui mua spoke up: "Let him go." And so, Māui joined them.
The canoe was made ready, the lines gathered, and the waka pushed out into the vastness of Te Moana nui a Kiwa. They paddled past reef and swell, further than the eye could reach, until Māui taha cried, "We are a very long way out!" But Māui-tikitiki only smiled. "We’re not far enough. The fish here are small. Let us go further."
Finally, when even the bravest among them grew uneasy, Māui declared it was time. The anchor was dropped, and the sea stilled.
🎣 His brothers had refused him bait, but Māui wasn’t empty handed. He took the sacred jawbone, the kauae of his tipuna kuia, Murirangawhenua and lashed it to his line. Then, with no bait to offer, he struck his own nose, smearing the blood upon the hook (so some accounts say). That blood, that hook, that whakapapa carried the weight of generations.
He chanted karakia, and cast the line deep into Tangaroa’s belly. Down it sank, beyond coral and current, until it struck.
Then - a pull. Not of a fish, but of something ancient and immense. Māui held fast, muscles straining, calling to his brothers to help. Some yelled, "Let it go!" But Māui cried back, "The fish caught by the jawbone of Murirangawhenua will not be released!"
Together they heaved. And from the deep rose not a fish, but a landmass — vast and sleeping. Māui had hauled up a body of earth itself: Te Ika O Maui (North Island)
⛰️ He stepped away to offer karakia, to acknowledge the sacredness of what had been lifted. "Let it rest," he told his brothers. "Let the land cool." But while he prayed, they ignored him. Eager to claim their share, they began to cut into the fish - striking, stomping, hacking.
The smooth surface of the land warped. Each wound became a valley. Each cut, a mountain. When Māui returned, the damage had already been done.
Still, the land held. As their waka (Said to be Wai Pounamu) turned for home, the giant fish, Te Ika-a-Māui followed silently in its wake.
🌋 Some traditions suggest this wasn’t the end and later recorded events such as those in the Lore of the Whare Wānanga deepen this understanding.
In the days of Māui and Mataaho, a great upheaval was foretold. Io-nui, the Supreme Being, sent messengers Rua-tau and Aitu-pawa down to Mataaho with word that the primal forces of the world - the atua, Kiwa of the oceans, Tawhirimātea of the winds, Te Ihorangi of the rain and snow would be unleashed.
Their energies would overwhelm the earth, drowning it, tearing it apart, breaking it down to Rarohenga, the underworld. This cosmic decree, known as Te Hurianga i a Mataaho, the overturning of Mataaho’s time, further explains the fractured surface of Te Ao - earthquakes, volcanoes, and wild seas all born of this divine upheaval. As the gods reshaped the land, Māui spoke again: "Leave my fish, this land, to me and my brothers, and our descendants after us."
This was the claiming of the whenua, an ancestral claim embedded deep in the body of the land. From that moment, Māui’s name was bound to Te Ika-a-Māui, and the people of Aotearoa all the way back to Hawaiki became known as descendants of the five Māui.
⚡️ So there you have it whānau - Māui, the fisher up of lands. Māui, whose jawbone hook still anchors our whenua from above (Te matau a maui / Scorpius) or below depending what version. An apt reminder that what we drag from the depths must be treated with care, or its wounds could mark the world forever.
☝️ And this is just Part One. There’s so much more to uncover. But to really get him, its wise to start at the beginning. From the tikitiki, from the sea, from the ancestor in the sky, and from the fish beneath the waka.
🤿 Thanks for diving in with me (I know it was a long one). I’m loving going back into these old kōrero and seeing them fresh again. There’s still so much for me to rediscover, but another one for our kete 👜
Arohanui T 🫶
📝👇 Sources for the curious:
📖 Ko ngā mahi a ngā tūpuna Māori (Sir George Grey, 1854 – Māori version)
📖 Polynesian Mythology (Grey, 1855 – English adaptation)
📚 Oral traditions from Te Arawa, Ngāti Raukawa (as collected by Grey)
📘 The Reed Book of Māori Mythology – A.W. Reed
📕 The Penguin Book of Māori Mythology – Margaret Orbell
🗣️ Wiremu Grace – Māori Myths & Legends (Te Kete Ipurangi)
