POLYNESIA. 23 



Another name, more generally diffused than common, is that of 

 Maui or Moui. At the Friendly Islands this is the god that supports 

 the earth, and is the cause of earthquakes. Another name given to 

 him is Mafuike, and by this appellation (Mafui'e or Mafu'e,) he is 

 known at the Navigator Islands as the god of earthquakes ; but the 

 deity on whom the islands rest is called Ti'iti'i Atalanga. At Tahiti 

 Maui is, or rather was, another name for Taaroa, and was applied to 

 him in the capacity of the god of earthquakes. He also, according to 

 one story, created the sun and the islands of the sea; the latter, by 

 dragging after him, through the seas, from east to west, an immense 

 rock, (papa,} from which fragments were broken off and formed the 

 islands ; after which he left the great land to the east, where it still 

 exists.* In the mythology of New Zealand, Maui holds the same 

 place, as principal deity and creator of the world, which is given to 

 Tangaloa elsewhere. The natives often speak of two Mauis, the 

 elder and the younger, Maui-mua and Maui-potiki, who are sometimes 

 represented as the gods who created mankind, and sometimes as the 

 first men. At Hawaii one of the ancient kings is said to have had 

 four sons, whose names were Maui-mua, Maui-hope, Maui-tiitii, and 

 Maui-atalana. The latter succeeded him on the throne, and the 

 history says, that " He went to the sun and chased his beams, be- 

 cause they flew so rapidly ; also, that he dragged with a hook these 

 islands from Maui to Taula, towing them after him in a canoe ; and 

 had those in the canoe landed safe at Hilo, on Hawaii, then all the 

 islands in the group would have been united in one, but one of the 

 party looking behind him, the hook broke, and the expected union 

 failed of its consummation."! Here is an extraordinary confusion of 

 the names and traditions of the three last-mentioned groups. Maui- 

 mua and Maui-hope correspond precisely in meaning to the two 

 Mauis of New Zealand ; Maui-tiitii and Maui-atalana, present, in the 

 last term of each, the compound name, Tiitii-atala^a, of Samoa (the 

 y always becoming n in Hawaiian). Finally, the traditions respect- 

 ing the last-named Maui are evidently derived from those which pre- 

 vail in Tahiti. Of the probable origin of this confusion we shall have 

 occasion to speak hereafter. 



Tiki or Ti'i is another term of general prevalence, variously ap- 



* See Forster's "Observations made during a -Voyage round the World," p. 541 ; also, 

 Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. chap. v. 



f Mo'oolelo Hawaii, in the Hawaiian Spectator, vol. ii. p. 218. 



