At this point in the storyline, Māui has found his mother, Taranga, and bought her home with him to his village but was still curious who his father was.

Creeping along, he ventured into a vast underground land and spotted his mother under a pūriri tree with a man.

Muriranga-whenua, Māui's grandfather, lived in the underworld with his father and Maui would visit him each day to give him food.

As seen in the book, Māui follows his mother into the Underworld and his father later performs the magical baptismal and purifying ceremonies.

In Māori mythology, his father made a slip in uttering the incantations because he was being hurried and this was ultimately the destruction of Māui.