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Martina Buckova: Maui: Polynesian Culture Hero, Variations of Motifs in Mauís Mythological Cycle in East and West Polynesia (Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2012)
The monograph of Martina Buckova presents Maui as a Polynesian culture hero. The phenomenon of culture hero can be noticed in most of ancient myths in many civilisations. Culture hero is a mythological being which teach people to use some tools, giving them fire, acting as mediator between deities and human world. Culture hero is often divine or half divine origin, as is Prometheus in Ancient Greece, sometimes is bearing features of the animal (Native American mythologies), or is described as an ancestor of the tribe, has a strong position in various mythologies around the world.
Culture hero as a phenomenon is presented in introduction of this study, where author compares culture heroes of different cultures around the world. She specifies here some common features of culture hero, as are, for example, his origin, the personality of culture hero, which is often trickster, who is trying to trick gods in purpose to help the humankind. Author here presents hero Maui, as he is known from the myths of Oceania. Although legends of Maui are spread in Melanesia, Micronesia and the whole region of Oceania, here she claims that in this study she focuses only Polynesian myths, the points out the common factors and the differences between myths of Western and Eastern Polynesia.
In the second chapter author shows us dissemination of the Maui myths in Oceania, especially in Polynesia. According to earlier collectors of myths, they believed that Maui was ancient ruler of Polynesians in their pre-Polynesian homeland, who led them into the pacific islands. According to this theory, Maui could be real navigator and ancestor, whose features became more and more legendary in the history, real facts was mixed with legends. Captain Cook was the first European who discovered Maui, but he thought it was foo fantastic to note it in his journal. If a god should bear some supernatural power, Maui can be rarely classified as a god. He is often regarded as an ancestor, hero. He is neither the primal god nor the child of primal gods; he usually appears in third or fourth generations after the birth...