Mahui

Mahui is the Marquesan reflex of the pan-Polynesian culture-hero and trickster Māui — a demigod. Handy's Marquesan Legends records that he fished up various islands, obtained fire from his grandfather Mahuike in the lower regions, and snared the sun with a noose of human hair to delay its passage across the sky 'in order that Maui's laundry might have time to dry.' He is one of the foremost figures of the Marquesan narratives (Native Culture p. 247). His parentage is not anchored to a registered figure here (Handy gives the Maui cycle without a fixed Marquesan divine-parent genealogy in the recorded narratives); the firmly-attested kin link is to his grandfather Mahuike.

Domains

• culture hero and trickster

Powers

• Fishing up of land from the sea
• Snaring and slowing of the sun
• Winning of fire from the underworld

Relations

• grandchild: Mahuike
• equated with: Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga
• equated with: Māui
• equated with: Maui
• equated with: Maui-tikitiki
• equated with: Maui Kisikisi

Sources

• E. S. Craighill Handy, Marquesan Legends (Bishop Museum Bulletin 69, 1930); E. S. Craighill Handy, The Native Culture in the Marquesas (Bishop Museum Bulletin 9, 1923), p. 247.