Maui Tikitiki a Taranga

Taranga has a miscarriage and miscarriages are normally born dead. There was a social role for the dead foetus, and that was to provide the focal point for the rites to appease the soul thought to have been angered by this denial of the opportunity to live life.

Taranga cut off her tikitiki—topknot—wrapped the foetus in it and flung the bundle into the sea. This is washed ashore in due course and morning finds the bundle entangled in kelp upon the beach. Sunshine causes the placenta encasing the foetus to shrink and strangulation is averted when a seagull pecks away the placenta. More dead than alive the foetus is espied by Tane-nui-a-rangi who removes it to Tikitiki-nui-a-rangi. The foetus survives as the child Maui-tikitiki- a-Taranga—Maui of the topknot of Taranga. Among other activities Maui delves into the three baskets of knowledge. When Maui is capable of deciding whether to remain in Tikitiki-nui-a-rangi or to return to the world of men he opts for the latter. The ancient explanation ends.

The abnormal circumstances in which Maui first sees light singles him out as unusual. The apparent withholding of his mother’s personality to prop up his own during the first hours of life precludes him from being a social being. He is then denied a place on the breast of Papa tuanuku—a right of every human. Thus the gates opened to humans into this life have been shut in his face.

Physically too, the chances of enjoying life are wan­ing. Nature itself seems to have reversed its function. The protecting placenta is threatening to strangle him, and the energy-giving rays of Tama-nui-te-ra (the sun) is threatening to deprive him of what scarce energy remains to him. Starved as well, it appears he is being discouraged from this life and forced to turn his face to the next. The reference to him as my mokopuna, by Tane- nui-a-rangi, confirms that Maui is indeed more of the next world than of this. One with such a disposition is ready to delve into the baskets of knowledge.