16.6 Maui’s Meeting with the Chieftainess of Orokoroko
271
was found that their languages were sufficiently alike for Maui and she to have some
conversation (p.154).
Beattie gives further details of Maui’s stay in New Zealand:
From Orokoroko, Maui proceeded up the East Coast and is next mentioned at Hawke’s Bay
where a point of land to the south of the harbour is known as Te Matua-a-Maui (the fish
hook of Maui). Gathering information from the Maoris about 1894, Colonel Gudgeon was
told that Maui had lived at East Cape. This is quite possible but it was presumably only for
a brief period. Then we have Maui’s name mentioned in connection with White’s Island and
its volcanic fires, and finally he is said to have left the Kui family near the North Cape.
Beattie goes on to quote from a North Island (Ngapuhi) account which, offering
us a remarkable window on the past, records Maui’s response to the inhabitants of
his “fish”:
When Maui saw the people who inhabited the land he had fished up, he attempted to teach
them; but they were a very stupid people, and did not learn the lessons he taught. He was
therefore angry, and said: ‘It is a waste of light for the sun to shine on such a stupid (moho)
people.’ One of the meanings of moho is stupid but it can also mean a forest dweller, a
bushman, and mohowao or mohoao signifies a wild man of the woods, a barbarian.
Beattie then speculates:
Who were these inhabitants mentioned in the various vivid narratives? I made inquiries
about them and as far as my chief informants knew these people were of the same race as
the Maoris – that is they were a brown people, Polynesians. If Maui could talk with the
principal woman at Orokoroko, even with difficulty, it implies that she spoke an early form
of the Polynesian language. They are said to have been a tall people and the men were
capable fishermen. Their huts or whares were of the traditional Maori type, and the fact that
the chief personage at Orokoroko was a woman argues that they had a certain culture, and
that women had a responsible position among them (p. 155).
It is significant that Maui never claimed to have discovered the South Island
and that he claimed no land rights to it. The existence of the North Island was
clearly unknown to his people. His discovery of it, in his own eyes and those of
his descendants, thus brought mana and land rights with it. Maui left Kui at North
Cape as guardian of those land rights. It seems likely that some of the crew of the
two exploratory canoes Maui led may have formed a small colony there for tradition
tells us that the “people of Kui” were still living at Kaipara when Nukutawhiti landed
there [10] (750 years later according to the chronology we suggest in Chapter 20).
It is unlikely that any women were aboard Maui’s two exploratory canoes. The men
left by Maui to protect his land rights at Kaipara, a large harbour on the west coast of
the North Island north of Auckland, must therefore have intermarried with women
from indigenous tribes.
New colonists followed in Maui’s wake. Maui’s son Wi-Wi, who, judging from
South Island places named after crew members, accompanied Maui on his visit to
New Zealand, led a later colonizing expedition to New Zealand, as did Wi-Wi’s
own great-grandson, Tutumaiao, in turn. Six hundred years later, Rakaihautu, also
descended from the Maui who visited New Zealand in the traditional accounts
above, came to New Zealand presumably also to claim land rights in the name of
271
was found that their languages were sufficiently alike for Maui and she to have some
conversation (p.154).
Beattie gives further details of Maui’s stay in New Zealand:
From Orokoroko, Maui proceeded up the East Coast and is next mentioned at Hawke’s Bay
where a point of land to the south of the harbour is known as Te Matua-a-Maui (the fish
hook of Maui). Gathering information from the Maoris about 1894, Colonel Gudgeon was
told that Maui had lived at East Cape. This is quite possible but it was presumably only for
a brief period. Then we have Maui’s name mentioned in connection with White’s Island and
its volcanic fires, and finally he is said to have left the Kui family near the North Cape.
Beattie goes on to quote from a North Island (Ngapuhi) account which, offering
us a remarkable window on the past, records Maui’s response to the inhabitants of
his “fish”:
When Maui saw the people who inhabited the land he had fished up, he attempted to teach
them; but they were a very stupid people, and did not learn the lessons he taught. He was
therefore angry, and said: ‘It is a waste of light for the sun to shine on such a stupid (moho)
people.’ One of the meanings of moho is stupid but it can also mean a forest dweller, a
bushman, and mohowao or mohoao signifies a wild man of the woods, a barbarian.
Beattie then speculates:
Who were these inhabitants mentioned in the various vivid narratives? I made inquiries
about them and as far as my chief informants knew these people were of the same race as
the Maoris – that is they were a brown people, Polynesians. If Maui could talk with the
principal woman at Orokoroko, even with difficulty, it implies that she spoke an early form
of the Polynesian language. They are said to have been a tall people and the men were
capable fishermen. Their huts or whares were of the traditional Maori type, and the fact that
the chief personage at Orokoroko was a woman argues that they had a certain culture, and
that women had a responsible position among them (p. 155).
It is significant that Maui never claimed to have discovered the South Island
and that he claimed no land rights to it. The existence of the North Island was
clearly unknown to his people. His discovery of it, in his own eyes and those of
his descendants, thus brought mana and land rights with it. Maui left Kui at North
Cape as guardian of those land rights. It seems likely that some of the crew of the
two exploratory canoes Maui led may have formed a small colony there for tradition
tells us that the “people of Kui” were still living at Kaipara when Nukutawhiti landed
there [10] (750 years later according to the chronology we suggest in Chapter 20).
It is unlikely that any women were aboard Maui’s two exploratory canoes. The men
left by Maui to protect his land rights at Kaipara, a large harbour on the west coast of
the North Island north of Auckland, must therefore have intermarried with women
from indigenous tribes.
New colonists followed in Maui’s wake. Maui’s son Wi-Wi, who, judging from
South Island places named after crew members, accompanied Maui on his visit to
New Zealand, led a later colonizing expedition to New Zealand, as did Wi-Wi’s
own great-grandson, Tutumaiao, in turn. Six hundred years later, Rakaihautu, also
descended from the Maui who visited New Zealand in the traditional accounts
above, came to New Zealand presumably also to claim land rights in the name of