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.