Motikitik

Motikitik is the island-fishing hero of Ulithian tradition, the youngest of a set of brothers whose mother is a spirit of the world below. With a magic hook he draws up land and food from beneath the sea, follows his mother into her hidden realm, and by breaking a taboo brings the flow of provisions to its ordained limit. His story is the Carolinian form of the Oceania-wide fisher-of-islands, cognate with the Polynesian Maui, recorded and analysed comparatively by Lessa.

Domains

• fishing and provision

Powers

• fishes islands and food up from beneath the sea

Sources

• Lessa, W. A. (1961), Tales from Ulithi Atoll, University of California Publications in Folklore Studies 13, Berkeley.
• Lessa, W. A. (1961), Tales from Ulithi Atoll, comparative apparatus; and Lessa, W. A. (1980), More Tales from Ulithi Atoll, Folklore and Mythology Studies 32.