as such both to Tahitians and Maoris), and a third name he gave was Ngangai. Now in Hawaiian this would be Nanai; and as the change from r and l to n is common in Polynesian, we may see the origin of the name of Lanai Island, off Māui, Hawaiian group. It is stated that Māui named this last island on account of the ui-tatauanga, or "tattooing with the ui," or tattooing comb. It was in Avaiki-runga (which by one account is made to include the Hawaiian Islands) that he visited Mauike, te pu o te āi the lord of fire, whose daughter—amongst others—was Pere (the Hawaiian fire goddess Pele). Now this is a remarkable deviation from the Maori and other stories relating Māui's visit to Mahuika, the god or goddess of fire, whose residence is always said to be in the nether world: here it is said to be in Hawaii; evidently a reference to the volcanoes of that group. I am not aware whether any of the ancient names of the Hawaiian Islands bears any resemblance to Te Aro-maro-o-pipi,[1] but the Hawaiian Island of Māui is clearly that indicated above as Mauiui.
I would suggest that Māui's "lifting up of the heavens" is a metaphor used to describe his onward course from horizon to horizon "where the sky hangs down," and his penetration into new seas beyond the limit of the knowledge of his compeers. The lifting—in fact—of the clouds of ignorance by the discovery of fresh island worlds. This
- ↑ "The dry or hard front of Pipi," or perhaps "The dry chasm of Pipi."
name of the largest island of the group—Hawaii. If we separate this name of Owyhee into its component parts, it is "O," the demonstrative which precedes all proper nouns, as ko in Maori; and "wyhee" is in Polynesian letters waihi. As Captain Cook had with him a native of Tahiti when he discovered the Sandwich Islands, and as the islands were known to his people as Vaihi, it seems that we have here the true origin of the name Owyhee, rather than that it is a corruption of Hawaii.
