Image source: Stellarium

A Scorpius/fishhook myth retold:

In the beginning of time, the Polynesian people lived in a place they called La’haina, which means “cruel and merciless sun,” because the sun did whatever it wanted to do throughout the days and nights and the skin of the people was burning from the heat.

There was a family of five brothers who lived in the village. The older brothers did not like having their younger brother, Maui, with them because he was always having “an idea” and was a bit of a boastful boy. They usually ignored him.

At this time the sun, La, was used to dancing across the sky for as long as he wanted and any part of the sky he wanted. La enjoyed watching the skin of the people turn to golden brown as he shone on them and get hot and sweaty, and hearing their complaints about his heat and light so unpredictable. No one knew when to go to sleep or when to get up, or when to eat, or when to plant the taro plants; the plants and animals were also struggling to figure out just what to do and when to do it.

One morning Maui planned to go fishing. As he looked at his fine fishing net made of vines and, he had another brilliant idea. Instead of the net, he would use his wonderful fishhook to capture the Sun and tie him to a coconut tree to make him behave. He paddled his own canoe out onto the Great Sea and waited for Sun to appear. He watched the horizon, and when the fingers of dawn reached up from the depths of the sea, Maui put a red feather on his magic fishhook and cast towards the Sun.

Sun (La) took the hook greedily, thinking it was something good to eat and he was hooked tight. Sun struggled with all its might to escape the hook that was holding him, but Maui held fast, as Sun dragged his canoe far out across the empty surface of the sea.

Maui’s brothers saw what was happening and rushed their canoes out to sea to help their bold younger brother. Each brother cast his fishing net across the Sun, and using all their strength together, they were able to pull Maui and the Sun towards the shore.

The brothers beached their canoes and swiftly fastened the nets holding the Sun to the volcanic rocks on the shore which were stronger than a coconut tree. Sun raged and burned, but nothing could persuade the brothers to release him until he agreed to select one path to travel along, one place to rise at dawn, another to sleep at night, and regular times to do these things. To make sure Sun kept his promise, Maui used his wonderful fishhook to tether the Sun to the island so that he could never do just whatever he wanted to. Maui learned a very important lesson that day, and so did his brothers - that together they could do more good things for everyone rather than just one of them doing it by himself and that it often takes more than one person to get a job done well.

Time passed and the brothers learned they could work together in other ways as well. It was sometime later, when Maui called his brothers to the beach and told them his new idea. “Why don’t we take my fishhook out, drop it into the Great Sea and see what we can find?”

The brothers climbed into their canoes and pushed off into the waters of the Great Sea. After a while, Maui tossed his fishhook over the side and it caught on the Great Sea’s bed. Maui told his brothers he had caught a big fish and to paddle as hard as they could, which they did, so busy rowing they did not notice the seafloor rising up from the water. They paddled with all their might, not looking back, until their arms were exhausted. When they looked back, they had pulled the land right up to the surface of the Great Sea and even above it, where the mountains still stand today. The brothers were so proud of what they had accomplished they did this several times and created the wonderful Hawai’ian Islands. Today the people of Hawai’i still celebrate the brothers and their hard work to create the lovely islands they call home, all because Maui had ‘an idea.’

I hope you enjoyed this Carol version of the story behind Scorpius that is high in the south during the entire summer, with ruddy Antares as the red feather in Maui’s Fishhook.

Until next week, KLU.