FOR THE GIRLS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 152, 29 June 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOR THE GIRLS

THE LEGEND OF MAUI, HOW HE SNARED THE SUN.

My Dear Girls, — The Maoris have always been a poetic and highly imaginative r*. i and believed in fairies and dryads, and often invested their chiefs 'ti 1 magical powers. The legend of how Maui snared the sun hss .I-.. •'! fascinated me. , Maui was a young chief, and the youngest of a family of broth He possessed magical powers, and may be described as a kind of M,"'- ' Puck, he was always up to impish tricks, and was looked upon bv V* 1 brothers as a great hero. One day, Maui began to think it wtlj too u*!! after the rising of the sun that it became night again. The sutf, thoull - Maui, sinks down below the horizon far too soon, so I mu6t see 1 ' ' can do to alter it. So he said to his brothers, "Let us catch the tun in ■ ' noose, and compel him to move slowly in order that men may l u ' longer days to labour in and procure food for themselves." , '-i But his brothers said, "No man would dare approach the sun ' P account of his warmth and the fierceness of his heat." Maui answer*!? "Have you not seen the wonderful things I have done by my powers? This will be easy if you will help me." His brothers consented, and they began to spin and twist ropej t form a noose in which to catch the sun. They plaited flax into ropes a J when they had finished Maui took up his enchanted weapon, which w Pii the jaw-bone of a great ancestress of his, and they all set out to catch th! sun. . ■ ■ . | They travelled all night, and when the day broke they halted in the '' forest, and hid themselves so they might not be seen by the sun. At nitb they resumed their journey, and at sunrise they again hid. At last the* * got far, far to the eastward, and came to the very edge of the place o«t of which the sun rises. They set to work built on each side of the ! place a long, high wall of clay, with huts and boughs of trees at each end in which to hide themselves. ■ C,'j Then they made the loops of the moose, and the brothers of M»iH lay in wait on one side of the place, and Maui lay in wait on the other He had in his hand the magic jaw-bone. "Mind now. Keep yourselret hidden, and don't go showing yourselves foolishly to the' sun, or you wi|| frighten him. When nearly all of him is in the nooue, I will shout ont and we will haul away, but don't be moved to pity by hit shrieks and screams." At last the sun rose up with his golden locks like a fire spreadinr far and wide over mountains and forests. He passed into the noote and they pulled the ropes tight. The monster began to struggle and roll himself about, the inire jerked backwards and forwards, and Maui rushed out with his weapon. - and struck the sun fiercely with many blows. The sun roared with fury but they held him for a long while, and then let him go, and, weak front the blows, the sun crept slowly and painfully along his course. Then man learned the full name of the sun, for he roared out, "Why am I smitten by you, oh man! Why should you wish to kill (Tamuni- a te- R a ? " And ever after that the sun J. A,# t has limped round the earth by \As reason of Maui's trick to lengthen the days.