Hi, I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is crash course mythology and today, we're gonna finish up our heroes series by telling the story of a great hero.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Okay, not really. The Rock may be the sexiest man alive, but he's no demigod like Ma'ui,
The demigod hero of Oceania, and the role he recently voiced in the film, Moana.
The legendary Ma'ui is pretty different from his cartoon counterpart.
He's younger, more lithe, and a little smarter. Still, he's an adventurer, he has a divine birth, he's a trickster, and a culture hero.
He's everything we love here at Crash Course.
*Crash Course Intro Music*
Ma'ui myths are found throughout Oceania, particularly in Hawaii. Like Heracles, the most well-known Ma'ui stories focus on a series of heroic deeds.
But where Heracles spent the vast majority of his labours killing, or stealing monstrous animals,
Ma'ui's great deeds are a little more motley. He fights a monstrous eel, but he also gets into an argument with the sun!
He creates the entire island of New Zealand.
Some stories characterize Ma'ui as a hero, and some of them work aetiologically to explain aspects of the natural world.
And others capture the mythic origins of Pacific Islander culture, and also unlike Heracles, these tasks are not assigned to Ma'ui as one big hero project.
They occur throughout his life and act as episodic glimpses into Oceania's culture.
But, okay. Enough treading water. Without further ado, Ma'ui's seven great deeds.
One: Fighting his mom's house. Not fighting in his mom's house,
fighting the house. Back in the mythic times of Oceania lived a goddess named Hina of the fire.
She had four sons and all of them were named Maui. One day she gives birth to a fifth named, you guessed it
Maui. This Maui, they call him Maui the skillful, is our hero.
But to Hina of the fire he's one too many mouths to feed. So she sets Maui five
adrift at sea.
It just, you know, it wouldn't be a myth without just a little attempted infanticide.
You know? Luckily for Maui five ,the god of the sea takes favor on him
and he survives the waves and currents of the ocean. He makes it all the way back to Hina of the fire's house.
She can't believe it and doubling down on her motherly abandonment,
she says that she'll only take him back if he proves his worth.
He must destroy her house by throwing
spears through its thatched roof. If you remember the Muendo(?) epic, this kind of radical remodeling should sound familiar.
Maui squares off against the house, beginning the fearsome battle where our hero defeats two
terrible
doorposts. He strikes down short post and tall post,
his mother, for whatever reason, is finally proud of her son and welcomes him, um,
home? Welcomes him to a pile of thatching? Either way heroic deed done. Two:
Raising the sky. Maui eventually gets a home, but things aren't all hunky-dory. In those days the sky that stretched over
Oceania was very very low. We're talking
scraping the tops of trees low. Clouds blocking all the light low. Maui decides to do something about this.
He gets a swig of some mystery drink out of a strange lady's gourd which fills him with enough magical strength to lift up
the whole sky. Though, palm tree leaves are still flat to this day from the time when the sky
pressed down on them. With all the new room Maui fashions a kite. He calls for help from a nearby wizard and a few
incantations later,
there's a great magical wind. In fact the winds are so strong that they snap Maui's line and blow his kite away.
But during the struggle Maui learns to read the winds and
understand the weather. Which he passes on to the people of the islands and now they can travel further than ever before. Three:
Fishing for New Zealand. Maui
might have sorted out the sky
but he was still the youngest brother. His older brothers all thought Maui the skillful was actually Maui the lazy and Maui the
bad at fishing. They teased him and tattled on him to Hina of the fire. Maui decides he is gonna prove his brothers wrong!
He travels to the underworld to make contact with a long-dead
ancestor. This ancestor is half dead and half alive,
so they give Maui the jawbone out of their dead half,
which he carves into a magical fish hook.
Then he goes and catches one of his mother's sacred Alae birds to use as bait. Now,
he's ready to go fishing. Maui five and his brothers row out farther than anyone has ever gone,
and they begin to fish. His brothers begin complaining about his laziness,
but then,
something catches on Maui's hook. The brothers gather around and helped Maui pull and
pull and rather than pull up a fish they pull up an
entire island. And after this his brothers stopped calling Maui lazy. Also. We get Lorde!
I mean we may never be Royals, but perhaps
heroes? Four:
Slow the Sun now he's third task was good for his reputation
But his fourth task is important for everyone on the Pacific Islands they all enjoyed the new room under the sky
But there's one problem the Sun streaks across it so fast that no one has any time to do any work
No one can tan hides
and there's not enough light to create tapa cloth a
handmade patterned textile
Constructed from trees and trust me tapa cloth is a big deal Heena of the fire comes to her son and asks him
Will you do this deed will you slow down the Sun?
She thinks there is no way he's gonna pull it off. But now he has learned a thing or two about
Asking for help he goes to his grandmother, and she tells him the Sun is so fast because it has
16 legs
If you have any hope of catching it you must set that many traps one snare for each leg
she gives Maui a magical stone ax
Once you've smeared the Sun use this to get your way now
He sets the snares and snags the Sun. He approaches it brandishing the magic
Axe he threatens it saying he will strike it down
Unless it agrees to take a dang time and give the people a chance to go about their day the Sun agrees
The day lengthens and people are much happier now
He then gets to go back to his doubtful mom and decree
What can I say except you're welcome my five?
Winning fire for Humanity many cultures have stories about discovering fire or stealing it from Supernatural sources think
Prometheus or grandmother spider or Loki who is the worst, but occasionally useful to have around?
So this is all to say Maui's fifth task might sound familiar now
We dealt with the too cramped sky, and the too fast Sun but the people of Oceania still don't have fire now
He knows his mother Hina of the fire possesses its secret
But she's not talking so Maui decides to go over her head and journeys once again to the underworld there
He tracks down his great-great grandmother ma Hui. Ah and convinces her to give him the secret of fire ma
Hua reaches down and pull one of her fingernails in which burns a tiny fire
She tells him take this back to the surface and you can spread the fire to all
Humanity Maui is very grateful and begins to head back, but on the way
drops the nail into a stream ah
Let's head to the thought-bubble to see how Maui gets himself out of this heroic pickle now. He goes back and tells ma
Hooyah who shakes her head and gives him another fingernail. He turns around heads back and drops it into a stream again
ah so back
He goes and he asks again and the same thing happens it happens again with all of the rest of her fingernails and men her
Toenails man what a klutz when Maui comes for her last toenail ma Hui odd gets so angry
That she throws it on the ground and sets the underworld on fire now
He turns and Sprint's out of the underworld chased by the roaring flames
The fire burns underneath the earth and all the water boils Maui chants a magic incantation that brings rain
To put out the fires after the rain stops Mejia gathers up the last remnants of the fire and hides it in
Tiny pieces in the Bark's of different trees after this fiasco
Maui and his brothers see the Ailey birds who belonged to their mother making fires to cook their food
But every time the brothers get near the Ailee put out their fire and fly away
Realizing that the birds must know where the fire is hidden now he concocts a plan now
He makes a dummy of himself and props it up in his community
He pushes the canoe out into the water and hides the birds see his dummy sail away
And whip up a fire to cook their bananas now
He leaps from his hiding spot and grabs the oldest Ailee burned shaking it by the neck and demanding to know the secret of fire
Finally it spills the fiery beans
Rub together the bark of the how and the sandalwood trees, and you'll always be able to make fire
That's a big old fiery check. Thank you thought bubble
Six kun aloha the long eel Maui's sixth deed is a quicken the long
eel kun Aloha is
terrorising he of the fire so Maui kills it and
Chops it up into many pieces all the pieces squirm around and become fish and other eels and that explains why there's so many fish
In the seas around the Pacific Islands boom fish chicken of the sea check seven
immortality last episode Heracles was promised immortality if he finished his Labor's for
Maui's final task he aims even higher
He wants to gain immortality not only for himself
but
All of humanity it all starts when Maui learns about the Goblin got us Hina Nui keepo who brings death to all creatures?
Now he hears that if he can steal her heart and give it out to the creatures of Earth. They'll all become
Immortal, but now he is scared the goddess is more powerful than anything he's tussled with so he asks the ailee
If they'll come and be his backup he explains to the birds when the goddess is asleep. We're gonna creep in through
her mouth
past her vulcanic a glass teeth
Down to her heart to steal it, but when we're inside you can't make a sound not a single
First
Everything goes according to plan now. He makes it past the goddesses jaws through her stomach and grabs her heart
he turns around climbs back towards freedom and just as he makes it to her mouth a
Bird tweets the goddess wakes up instantly and feels Maui in her mouth she bites down and there
Now he dies so now he fails his final task, but maybe in this case the failure is the lesson
Immortality sounds nice, but it isn't meant for humans, or as Thoth, and I sometimes call them mortals
Maybe it's better to learn to accept our own mortality
Lest we get chomped by a goddess Maui is kind of a curious figure sometimes
capable sometimes clumsy sometimes strong sometimes scared sometimes clever sometimes dumb
He and Heracles have more than a few things in common
I'd say they both do impossible deeds sure but they're not one-trick heroes either look at you Aquaman
Just kidding Jason Momoa is gonna. Crush it
This is one of the things that sets studying mythology apart from studying literature or fiction when your hero is a mythological hero
It means they've been constructed by entire cultures sometimes
multiple cultures and passed down orally over
Generations that's very different than a character whipped up by a professional screenwriter and voiced by the rock
We can't look to myths for the same storytelling experience that we get from a Disney cartoon
But myths and their variations allow us to think about what stories come into being and why they remain popular
Whether the stories are about
Discovering fire creating new zeland or just getting in a fight with your mom's door jamb and winning check next week
It's time for a big transition. We're moving on to mythical places. Thanks for watching and see you in Eton
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Thanks for watching and just so you know we considered insulting ant-man's limited powers, but although it
Just seems like such a nice guy it felt wrong