Mahuika

Also known as: Mafuia / Mafuie / Mafuika / Mahu-ika / Mau-ika · Role: ancestress of Maui, the guardian of fire · First appears: Chapter V · Maui Finding Fire · Part 1

In Chapter V · Maui Finding Fire · Part 1, one version says Maui took fire away from Mahuika; the book also mentions her as an ancestress of Maui who found fire. In the Samoan story, Mafuie gave Maui fire to carry to his father, but when Mafuie extinguished the fire and scattered the oven stones, Maui confronted him. At last Maui broke one of Mafuie’s arms. Mafuie offered him one hundred wives to spare the other, then taught him the secret of finding fire for the upper world.

In the Society Islands legend, Mau-ika taught Maui which woods held fire, how to make it, and gave him coals. Maui set her banyan house alight and fled toward the upper world. In the Tokelau Islands legend, Mafuika refused Talanga’s request for fire at first, but after he threatened to kill her, she taught him how to make fire and cook food. In the New Zealand legend, Maui repeatedly tricked Mahuika into giving him fire and put it out until only one nail remained. She threw her last burning nail down, and fire spread everywhere; Maui called for rain, which checked it and drove her away, nearly drowned. As she fled, she saved fire for people by throwing sparks into trees. In Chapter VI · Maui the Skillful · Part 1, the New Zealand legend again names her as Maui’s ancestress and says she recognized him as “the deceitful Maui.”