The abundant store of myths and legends of Southern Polynesia have been fortunate in falling into the hands of such men as Sir George Gray, Edward Tregear, S. Percy Smith, Wm. Wyatt Gill, and others who have dealt with them in wise and loving fashion.
The store of Hawaiian myth, legend, and tradition has also been skilfully touched by such writers as Sheldon Dibble, James Jackson Jarvis, Jules Remy, Abraham Fornander, W. D. Alexander, S. B. Dole, Rollin M. Daggett (with the late King Kalakaua) and others; but still the field does not begin to be exhausted.
In dealing with Hawaiian legends, it is necessary to bear in mind that many of them have a Southern origin, and valuable work is yet to be done in tracing some of them to still earlier and remoter sources, perhaps to Asia. The single version of the Maui story which I offer, is not by any means the most interesting, nor the most important of the four or five variants of this legend furnished by the Hawaiian Islands. It connects itself well, however, with Southern legends on the same theme, through the incident of Maui's voyage in pursuit of the Sun, in which he went as far as Kukulu-o-Kahiki, which was a general expression that included not only Tahiti but all the lands known to us as Southern Polynesia, until it came to mean any foreign country. I regret that I cannot present the version as given on Kauai, the western-most island of the group, which has striking points of resemblance to the Southern legends, and is full of interest. But the Kauai variant I have, though rather long, is not entirely complete. The marks of this Southern origin are very evident. There is an Oahu-variant (Oahu is the southeastern neighbor of Kauai) which is of great interest, but as yet I have it only in a fragmentary form.
The Maui[1] version, places the scene of the hero's exploits in that vast caldera of Hale-a-ka-la (house-of-the-sun), which is famous as the greatest extinct crater in the world. The story of Maui's great exploit, of hooking up islands from the bottom of the ocean, is common property throughout Polynesia.
- ↑ This Maui is the name of the Island, and is to be pronounced, Mow-ee. (Mow as in the first part of mouth.)
