Maori Myth and Legend

Fairies:

• “usually glimpsed on misty, overcast days.” 38

• “Most of the time they were visible only to tohunga with visionary powers [matakite], though others could hear them” 38

• “they possessed bodies” 38

• “Their skins were pale and their hair was light in colour.” 38

• “they were not tattooed” 38

• “Most of the stories about fairies tell how they sought humans as lovers” 39

• They fairies and humans would meet: “Erotic dreams could be explained in this way, and a further proof was the occasional birth of an albino child, whose pale skin, fair hair and inability to stand in the sunlight were obviously inherited from a fairy father.” 39

• “Some writers speak of them as the spirits of ancestors, though without naming the ancestors concerned.” 39

• “According to the Hauraki peoples, the techniques of weaving and plaiting were acquired from a fairy [patupaiarehe] woman” 60

• Known to kidnap wives: fear cooked food, fire and red ochre. 160

This was a great introductory reading for me to establish a basic knowledge of Maori ‘fairies’. It was enough information to draw up some ideas but it was also good because it helped me realise that it was an unreachable task for me to take on with such little time left and alos takes me too far away from what I have been researching previously.

Orbell, Margaret. The Illustarted Encyclopedia of Maori Myth and Legend, Canterbury University Press, 1995.