2016 - DĂa D (New Zealand)
1. Maui is the talented and intelligent demigod of Polynesian mythology, responsible for rising from the depths the North Island of Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand.
2. After a miraculous birth and growth, Maui won the affection of his supernatural parents, he taught useful arts to men, he caught the sun and tamed the fire. But one of his most famous facts was to rescue the North Island from the bottom of the sea.
3. Maui's four brothers conspired to abandon him when he went fishing, they were jealous of him. However, Maui heard his plans and secretly
4. He built a hook with an ancestral magic jawbone.
5. One night, he went to his brother’s canoe and hid under the floorboards.
6. When the canoe was offshore and they filled the bottom of the canoe with fish, Maui came out of hiding. Then he pulled out his magic hook, threw it on one side of the boat and began to recite powerful enchantments.
7. The hook fell deeper and deeper into the ocean until Maui felt he had touched something. He threw the hook up and he felt the hook pulled down strongly. It was a big fish! Maui managed to get the fish to the surface with the help of his brothers.
8. Maui told his brothers to wait until he had calmed Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, before they began to cut the fish. But they got tired of waiting and began to cut it into pieces.
9. Those pieces are now various valleys, mountains, lakes and rocky shores we can see in the North Island.
10. Until today, the North Island is known in Maori as Te Ika a Maui, the fish of Maui. If you take a look at a map of New Zealand you’ll see the fish's head in the south island and the tail, in the north. The South Island is also known as Te Waka a Maui, Maui's canoe; Rakiura or Stewart Island is known as Te Punga to Maui, the stoned anchor of Maui.