acter in the mythology of any
nation.

There are three centers for these legends, New Zealand in the south,
Hawaii in the north, and the Tahitian group including the Hervey Islands
in the east. In each of these groups of islands, separated by thousands
of miles, there are the same legends, told in almost the same way, and
with very little variation in names. The intermediate groups of islands
of even as great importance as Tonga, Fiji or Samoa, possess the same
legends in more or less of a fragmentary condition, as if the three
centers had been settled first when the Polynesians were driven away
from the Asiatic coasts by their enemies, the Malays. From these
centers voyagers sailing away in search of adventures would carry
fragments rather than complete legends. This is exactly what has been
done and there are as a result a large number of hints of wonderful
deeds. The really long legends as told about the demi god Ma-u-i and his
mother Hina number about twenty.

It is remarkable that these legends have kept their individuality. The
Polynesians are not a very clannish people. For some centuries they have
not been in the habit of frequently visiting each other. They have had
no written language, and picture writing of any kind is exceedingly rare
throughout Polynesia and yet in physical traits, national customs,
domestic habits, and language, as well as in traditions and myths, the
different inhabitants of the islands of Polynesia are as near of kin as
the cousins of the United States and Great Britain.

The Maui legends form one of the strongest links in the mythological
chain of evidence which binds the scattered inhabitants of the Pacific
into one nation. An incomplete list aids in making clear the fact that
groups of islands hundreds and even thousands of miles apart have been
peopled centuries past by the same organic race. Either complete or
fragmentary Maui legends are found in the single islands and island
groups of Aneityum, Bowditch or Fakaofa, Efate, Fiji, Fotuna, Gilbert,
Hawaii, Hervey, Huahine, Mangaia, Manihiki, Marquesas, Marshall, Nauru,
New Hebrides, New Zealand, Samoa, Savage, Tahiti or Society, Tauna,
Tokelau and Tonga.

S. Percy Smith of New Zealand in his book Hawaiki mentions a legend
according to which Maui made a voyage after overcoming a sea monster,
visiting the Tongas, the Tahitian group, Vai-i or Hawaii, and the
Paumotu Islands. Then Maui went on to U-peru, which Mr. Smith says "may
be