Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/348

 THE MYTHICAL STORY OF MAUI, THE PROMETHEUS OF POLYNESIA.

BY N. B. EMERSON, M. D.

would be impossible to compress into a paper of reasonable length an account of the whole story of the Polynesian hero and demi-god, Maui, which we find divided up into many branches, without putting it into such a dessicated condition as to make it unfit to be offered as literary pabulum. The mythical legend of Maui belonged to Southern, before it came into the possession of Northern, Polynesia, before it crossed the equator and rooted itself in Hawaiian soil. The chief centres for Maui-legends are New Zealand and the Hervey Islands. But there is hardly a group (in Southern Polynesia) that does not furnish its own variant, or commentary on this fruitful theme.

No less than nine centres in South Pacific are mentioned as giving more or less important and different versions of this story. While in Northern Polynesia, the Hawaiian group tarnishes not less than four versions which bear the stamp of originating independently of each other. The exploits of Maui concern affairs of vast human importance, the length of the day, the possession of fire, and the secret of its production, and they so often trench on the supernatural as to seem worthy of being classed as myths.

A Polynesian legend, as originally obtained, is generally so prolix, repetitious, and overladen, as to make a very dull story. The elements of human interest, however, are all there, and, for the sake of truth and science, must not be rudely or unwisely handled, lest something vital be lost, and the healthy aroma of mountain and ocean evaporate, leaving behind only a handful of mud.