374 KEPOKT— 1891. 



Oil till they reached the spot where the ends of the tendrils, 

 which hung down from heaven, reached the earth, and there 

 they found an old ancestress, quite blind, named the Face of 

 Night. She was the keeper of the tendrils which hung from 

 above, and sat at the spot where they touched the earth, and 

 held the end of one of them in her hands. The two brothers 

 ado];)ted a curious device to obtain from the old lady the infor- 

 mation they wanted ; and, having succeeded, the younger 

 brother was the first to attempt the ascent. He sprang into 

 the air, but seized by mistake a loose tendril, and away he swung 

 to the very edge of the horizon, but a blast of wind drove him 

 in an opposite direction, and so he swung backwards and for- 

 wards till, his feet touching the earth again, he let go his hold 

 and gave up the attempt. Tawhaki then seized a firmly-rooted 

 tendril, and began to climb. By direction of his old relative, 

 the Face of Night, he kept on repeating powerful incantations, 

 and so escaped the dangers of that difficult and terrible road, 

 and reached the sky. Then the legend describes how he trans- 

 formed himself into an ugly old man, and joined a party of 

 people who were making canoes, who pressed him into their 

 service, and made him carry their tools and firewood, and how 

 he horrified them all, when they reached the village, by seating 

 himself beside the sacred person of the chief lady of the place, 

 who was no other than his celestial wife. After exciting the 

 wonder and curiosity of all the inhabitants of the place, he 

 made himself known to his wife, and resumed his natural 

 appearance. He never returned to earth again, and was 

 worshipped by the Maoris as the God of Thunder and Light- 

 ning. 



How mankind learnt to ignite fire is told in a curious legend 

 common to all Polynesians. The Maori Prometheus, Maui, who 

 was a great practical joker, having extinguished all existing 

 fires, his mother directed the servants to go and ask the god- 

 dess Mahuika to give them fire to cook with, but they were all 

 too terrified to obey her. Maui then offered to go himself. 

 His parents warned him not to play any tricks on the old lady, 

 and he promised to be careful. But on reaching the abode of 

 the Goddess of Fire, and obtaining what he asked for, he went 

 aside and extinguished it, and presented himself again. The 

 fire was obtained by the goddess from the root of her nails, 

 which she tore out to obtain it. Maui kept on extinguishing 

 the fire given, and asking for more, till he thoroughly ex- 

 asperated the Fire Goddess, who, when reduced to her last toe- 

 nail, pulled it out and dashed it on the ground, when everything 

 caught fire. Maui changed himself into a hawk, and flew with 

 rapid flight ; but the earth and sea caught firs, and Maui nar- 

 rowly escaped destruction. The fire was extinguished by the 

 aid of the God of Storms. But before the fire was all lost the 



