FISH STORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20454, 4 January 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

FISH STORIES.

MAUI'S CATCH.

BT KOTABE,

I am rather shy of attempting fish stories. T lack the requisite imagination for one thing. Besides that I was discouraged in my youth after my first trip from Picton to Nelson. [ found myself regarded more in sorrow than in anger when 1 returned to the place of my habitation and gave an exact, uncoloured, highly scientific account of Pelorus Jack. It seemed that my chief offence was tho low opinion I held of my auditors' intelligence. Tliev could stand a good bit, but this was altogether too much. My reputation for veracity suffered so severely that to some people at least any tale that had only my work for authority was suspect from the beginning.

Yet even at that date Pelorus Jack had been for long a national figure, recognised as such by our sage legislators, who did what they could to protect him. Men came across the seas solely to behold this wonder of our coasts. But there were many dyed-in-the-wool New Zealanders that refused to believo in him. It was in another land many years later that I foi the second time ventured to tell what I had seen as I leaned over the old W'ainui's rail. I immediately acquired a reputation as a singularly brilliant and original Baron Munchausen. 1 was acclaimed a wit of the first water. I thought it safest to let it remain at that. Tho truth is great, but it does not always prevail. Well, so much by way of preface. 1 want everybody to understand that I now regard all fish stories with a certain diffidence. I seem to lack the gift to make them ring true. That may bo the reason why I am so poor a fisherman. To protect myself I shall strictly quote my authorities. On their heads then be the blame.

Eels. Modern researches on the eel make it unlikely that any eel story, however improbable on the face of it, should be permanently regarded with suspicion. The eels of the Northern Hemisphere, American and European, assemble in countless myriads during the early summer in a definite locality in the Western Atlantic. Here they die, but millions of their offspring aie left. The American progeny set out to the west, and after a year reach their homeland, still very minute and not bearing much resemblance to the mature eel. The European branch of the family have a harder task; it seems the lot of Europeans in these difficult days. They take tliree years to cross the Atlantic going east, find their way into the estuaries along the coastline of Europe and Great Britain, and set out on their new existence in the very waters, it mav be, from which their ancestors migrated several vears before.

Our own eels probably go through a similai lifq history. No angler's tale could ever come within coo-ee of that fully authenticated mystery. The eel. like the shark, has few friends among the fishermen. It would be worth finding, if it could be done, the dimensions of the largest eei over taken in New Zealand waters. There is a record of one, declared authentic by the author of that admirable work " The New Zealand Nature Study Book," which weighed 701b. and was 10ft. long. There are dark meres in plenty throughout New Zealand that look grim and menacing enough to hold in their secret depths -monsters even greater than that. And there are local tales here and there of disappearances of farm animals, and even of human beings, where a huge eel was given the credit. The Deep Sea.

New Zealand's champion fish story is, of course, ihe famous tale of Maui. Maui's brothers would not take him fishing, for he had a pretty taste for magic and they did not know what lie would be up to next. The women objected to his habit of remaining idle at home. He did not satisfy their idea of a provider for the needs of his household. He bade them be of good cheer, prepared his line, and snooded his enchanted fishhook, which was armed with a sharp piece of the jawbone of Ins ancestress, Muri-rangi-whenua. He hid overnight in his brother's canoe, and they were well on the way to the fishing grounds in the morning when he revealed himself. They tried to turn to the shore, but Maui, bv his magic, made the land recede, and the more they strove to teach it the further away it fled. In despair they had to accept him as a member of the crew, and they set off again to the fishing grounds. But Maui had them under his thumb now, and he would not let them cast anchor at the familiar spot. He was after bigger game and he needed sea room for his fishing. He told them of a place known to him far out at sea where they would fill their boat in no longer time than was required to shut their eyes and open them again.

They were in for it now. and they let him have his way. Having come so far they might as well go a little farther. So they went to the open sea and dropped over their lines. Once and again they threw in their hooks and it was even as Maui had said; the boat was filled to the gunwale with the miraculous draught. They were for returning forthwith. But Maui rcasonalily objected that he had not yet tried his luck The Catch.

His hook, ornamented with mother of pearl, shone in the sunlight. It was strangely carved and was bound with tufts of hair pulled from the tail of a dog. The brothers guessed he was up to some trick or other and asserted the authority that had somehow been in abeyance so far, by refusing to let him have anv bait. Maui was not the man to be discouraged by a little matter like that. He smote himself hard on the nose .and let the blood run over the hook. The hook sank down and down. It fell directly into the doorway of the house of Tonganui, who lived on the sea-bed. It caught on tlie sill of the door. Maui began to pull in his line. The brothers saw ho had something big on and watched eagerly while be hauled and strained. A mighty swirl of waters; "foam gurgling up and bubbles from the earth"; the brothers cried aloud in their terror. But still the catch would not come to the surface; till Mam chanted a potent incantation which rightly used made heavy things as light. And 10, there floated on the surface a mighty portion of earth. Maui had brought a new land to the light of day.

Of course the canoe was high and dry. Maui left his brothers to return home, for he wanted to offer the due prayers and sacrifices and complete the rites necessary before any use was made of a catch. He" departed with strict injunctions that his brothers should eat nothing till his return, and particularly not lay hands upon Ins fish. But as soon as he was gone they began to cut it up and the fish twisted and writhed and lashed his tail. So New Zealand came from the waters, but where it would have been smooth and flat the vanity and folly of the brothers ridged its surface into mountain and valley and cliff. Actea-roa the Maoris called it when they found it on the waste of waters long, long after—Aotea-roa, the land of the long white daylight.