In Māori mythology, as in other Polynesian traditions, Māui is a culture hero and a trickster, famous for his exploits and cleverness.

While attempting to win immortality for mankind, Māui entered her vagina, intent on leaving through her mouth while she slept.

He was a miraculous birth – his mother threw her premature infant[a] into the sea wrapped in a tress of hair from her topknot (tikitiki) – hence Māui's full name is Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga.

[9]: 233  His grandfather Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi then found the child on the beach,[8] covered by swarms of flies and gulls, and nourished him to adolescence.

[3]: 13 When Māui became old enough, he travelled to his family's home and found his four brothers, Māui-taha, Māui-roto, Māui-pae, and Māui-waho, and his sister, Hina.

He crept in and sat down behind his brothers, and soon Taranga called the children and found a strange child, who at first she does not recognise and attempts to cast him from the house, but he proved to be her son.

These are the ways by which men gain influence – by laboring for an abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others.After Māui performed feats such as transforming himself into different kinds of birds, his brothers acknowledged his power and admired him.

[9]: 233  He became vexed that his mother always left before dawn and returned the next night, he one day blocked the entrances and sources of light into their house to keep her there, and stole her clothes.

With the sun up, he was able to see where she went every day, and it turned out that she'd pull a clump of tussock from the ground, and descend a large tunnel to the underworld.

Once he arrived there he found a group of people sitting on a patch of grass in a grove of manapau trees,[b] from which he dropped berries onto his parents' heads.

Armed with the jaw-bone of Murirangawhenua and a large amount of rope, which is in some tellings made from his sister Hina's hair, Māui and his brothers journeyed to the east and found the pit where the sun-god Tama-nui-te-rā slept during the night-time.

Tama-nui-te-rā was caught in the noose and Māui beat him severely with the jaw-bone until he surrendered and agreed to travel slowly across the sky.

One night, he wove for himself a flax fishing line and enchanted it with a karakia to give it strength; to this he attached the magic fish-hook made from the jaw-bone that his grandmother Murirangawhenua had given him.

[9]: 234 When it emerged from the water, Māui left to find a tohunga to perform the appropriate ceremonies and prayers, leaving his brothers in charge.

They, however, did not wait for Māui to return but began to cut up the fish, which writhed in agony, causing it to break up into mountains, cliffs and valleys.

[11][9]: 234 In Northern Māori traditions of New Zealand, Māui's waka became the South Island, with Banks Peninsula marking the place supporting his foot as he pulled up that extremely heavy fish.

[9]: 234  Māui sailed on a waka called Mahaanui, which he left on top of a mountain in the foothills behind what is now Ashburton after pulling up the North Island.

Māui prayed to his great ancestors Tāwhirimātea, god of weather, and Whaitiri-matakataka, goddess of thunder, who answered by pouring rain to extinguish the fire.

As his head and arms disappear, one of his brothers - or the fantail bird - cannot hold back any longer and burst out in laughter.

[2]: 449–450 [9]: 234 In south Westland, Kāti Māhaki ki Makaawhio's Te Tauraka Waka a Maui Marae[16] is named in honour of the tradition stating that Māui landed his canoe in Bruce Bay when he arrived in New Zealand.

[17] In a tale collected from a Kāi Tahu woman of Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora, Māui threw a giant to the ocean and then buried him beneath a mountain at Banks Peninsula.

[18] The next winter, the giant remained still underneath the mountain, but stirred during summer, which caused the land to split and form Akaroa Harbour.

Over a period of time where Hina visited a bathing pool, Te Tunaroa, the father of eels, molested her.