ORIGIN: Polynesian (Maori)[New Zealand]
TYPE: Tutelary god
INFORMATION: Not a creator god but one who assists mankind in various supernatural ways. According to tradition he was aborted at birth and cast into the sea by his mother, who thought he was dead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. He is the deity who drew the islands of New Zealand from the floor of the ocean in a net. Maui caught the sun and beat it into submission, making it travel more slowly across the sky so that the days became longer. He also brought fire from the underworld for mankind and tried, unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for him by entering the vulva of the underworld goddess Hine-Nui-Te-Po while she was asleep. She awoke and crushed him to death. Though a deity, he has been made vulnerable to death by a mistake during his rites of birth (see also Balder). Also Mawi.