584 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



till only one remained in his quiver : but this was the magical 

 arrow that had never failed its mark. Tawats, holding it in 

 his hands, lifted the barb to his eye and baptised it in a divine 

 tear. Then the arrow sped and struck the sun-god full in the 

 face, and the sun was shivered into a thousand fragments, 

 which fell to the earth, causing a general conflagration. [Here 

 perhaps I may be allowed to call attention to the exquisite 

 beauty of this poetical idea in the mind of a savage — the arrow 

 of deliverance was powerless till touched with the tear of divine 

 pity.] Then Tawats, the hare-god, fled before the destruc- 

 tion he had wrought, and as he fled the burning earth con- 

 sumed his feet, consumed his body, consumed his hands, and 

 his arms. All were consumed but the head alone, which 

 bowled across valleys and over mountains, fleeing destruction 

 from the burning earth, until at last, swollen with heat, the 

 eyes of the god burst, and the tears gushed forth in a flood 

 which spread over the earth and extinguished the fire." :;: In 

 this story we have again the deluge of waters succeeding the 

 great fire and extinguishing it. The Yurucares of the Bolivian 

 Cordilleras and the Mbocobi of Paraguay all attribute the 

 destruction of the world to a great conflagration which swept 

 over the earth, consuming everything living except a few who 

 took refuge in a deep cave.f 



These tales, with all their wonderful series of coincidences, 

 would have little except general interest for us were it not for 

 the fact that the " fire and water " legends of disaster are 

 repeated very clearly in New Zealand and in the islands of 

 Polynesia. The most purely mythical versions are connected 

 with the great hero Maui, and his feats for the benefit of man- 

 kind. He was desirous of obtaining the boon of fire for the use 

 of the human race, so he went to his divine ancestress, the 

 goddess of fire, Mahuika, to procure it.} It is unnecessary to 

 repeat the whole of the tradition, which can be found in Grey's 

 "Polynesian Mythology," White's "Ancient History of the 

 Maori," and several other books, § but the end of the legend 

 deserves special notice. After Maui had obtained by artifice all 

 the fire in the possession of the goddess, she became enraged 

 and pursued him. " Then out she pulled the one toe-nail that 

 she had left, and it too became fire, and as she dashed it 

 down on the ground the whole place caught fire. And Maui 

 ran off and made a rush to escape, but the fire followed hard 



* " Popular Scieace Monthly," October, 1879, p. 799. 



t Brinton's " Myths of the New World," p. 217. 



I The Moriori version of this name — namely, " Mauhika " — seems 

 more correct, as it suggests an etymology: mau, enduring; hika, to 

 kindle fire by friction. 



§ The Polynesian fire-getting legends are to be found compared in 

 Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xx., p. 369. 



