Hinauri- Polynesian FigureMortal"Sister of Māui"

The Transformation of Irawaru

Hinauri was the sister of Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga and the wife of a man named Irawaru. One day Māui and Irawaru went fishing together. Irawaru tangled Māui's line. The response was savage: Māui used his supernatural power to stretch and reshape Irawaru's body until it became a dog. In Māori tradition, this is how the kurī, the Polynesian dog, entered the world.

When Hinauri asked Māui where her husband was, he told her to call out to him. She did. Irawaru came running to her in his new form, barking. Grey's Polynesian Mythology records that the recognition of what Māui had done broke her completely.

The Sea Journey

In her grief, Hinauri went to the sea and threw herself into the waves. But the ocean did not take her. The currents carried her across the water to a distant island, the domain of Tinirau, a chief whose power was bound to the sea and its fish. She came ashore. She was found. She married Tinirau.

Tinirau and the Whale

Tinirau kept a pet whale named Tutunui. When the tohunga Kae visited the island and needed passage home, Tinirau lent him the whale to ride across the sea. Kae was to send Tutunui back when he reached shore. Instead, Kae beached the whale, butchered it, and cooked it. The smell of whale fat drifted back across the water.

Hinauri led the expedition to retrieve Kae. She gathered a company of women and traveled to his village. The problem was identifying him: no one would point him out. Hinauri and her women performed dances and comic entertainments until every man in the village was laughing. One man laughed with crooked teeth. That was Kae. The women enchanted him into sleep, carried him back to Tinirau's island, and he woke surrounded by the bones of the whale he had killed.