Makea-tutara- Polynesian FigureMortal"Father of Māui"

The Lost Son

Makea-tutara and Taranga had several sons, but the youngest arrived too soon. Taranga cut her hair, wrapped the premature infant in a topknot, and threw him into the sea. The child should have died. Instead, as Grey recorded, he was carried by the waves to his ancestor Tāmanui-ki-te-rangi, who raised him.

Years later the boy came back. He slipped into the family house at night and sat among his brothers, and when Taranga counted her sons in the morning there was one too many. Makea-tutara recognized what the others could not: this stranger was his youngest child, alive, grown, and carrying power that none of the older brothers possessed.

The Last Karakia

Every feat Māui performed required karakia, the ritual incantations that gave supernatural acts their force. Makea-tutara was the one who taught them to him. He was a tohunga, a man who knew the prayers by heart, and he passed them to his son as tools are passed: one at a time, with instruction on how each worked.

Before Māui's final quest, to crawl through the body of Hine-nui-te-pō and conquer death, he went to his father one more time. Makea-tutara taught him the incantations he would need. But something was wrong. In Grey's account, errors appeared in the preparatory rites, and Makea-tutara warned his son that the omens were bad. Māui went anyway. Hine-nui-te-pō woke and killed him, and the karakia Makea-tutara had spent a lifetime gathering could not bring him back.