tattoo maui

Once Maui became interested in tattooing and tried to make a dog look better by placing dark lines around the mouth. The legends say that one of the sacred birds saw the pattern and then marked the sky with the red lines sometimes seen at sunrise and sunset. An Hawaiian legend says that Maui tattooed his arm with a sacred name and thus that arm was strong enough to hold the sun when he lassoed it. There is a New Zealand legend in which Maui is made one of three gods who first created man and then woman from one of the man's ribs.

The Hawaiians dwelling in Hilo have many stories of Maui. They say that his home was on the northern bank of the Wailuku River. He had a strong staff made from, an ohia tree (the native apple tree). With this he punched holes through the lava, making natural bridges and boiling pools, and new channels for its sometimes obstructed waters, so that the people could go up or down the river more easily. Near one of the natural bridges is a figure of the moon carved in the rocks, referred by some of the natives to Maui.


- Legends of Maui, A Demi-God of Polynesia, by W. D. Westervelt