Episode 15: Maui
/After seeing Disney’s Moana, learn all about the badass demigod Maui, origin stories of the Pacific Islands, and very human mythological metaphors of Polynesia and Hawaii. The sun is a pigeon, the matriarchy wins, and we meet the Jean-Ralphio of the sea. If you love Star Wars and the sunny shores of tropical islands, this is the episode for you. All this and more for our quinceañera episode!
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and review us in iTunes to help new listeners find the show. Plus, check out our Patreon for bonus audio content, behind-the-scenes photos, custom recipe cards, and more. Every bit helps as we get our first season off the ground!
Our music is: "Danger Storm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Transcript
AM: Welcome to Spirits Podcast Episode 15: Maui. It's our Quinceañera.
JS: Oh, it's cute.
AM: Aww… Fifteen episodes. Thank you so much for your support along the way. Our listenership is growing every week, and it's so exciting for us to hear from folks on Twitter and on Facebook and hear from our patrons commenting on our Patreon only, otherwise, posts. So, this week we would love to shout out Stefan Lukach, Thea and Jeremy Reed, Daniel Silver, Daniel Parkerson, Christina, a friend of the show, Leslie Daxos as well as some great podcasts for you. So, one, Definitely Human, and there's Noisy Spirit, the We Found a Book Podcast and also the team At The Bridge Podcast.
JS: It's always really great to find podcasts that are inspiring to us and tell amazing stories. Also, if you are a fan of drunken mythology podcasts, which we know you are because you're listening to our show, you should --
AM: [Inaudible 0:47] middle of Venn Diagram.
JS: You should take a listen to Legends, Myths and Whiskey Podcast. It is a great podcast. They get drunk. They drink some whiskey. They tell really, really interesting stories. Tanner and Eric are super, super cool guys. Totally take a listen. They're just coming out with – by the time this one comes out, they'll be coming out with their 35th episode.
AM: Wow.
JS: So, take a listen. They are very flattering to us on Twitter, and we try to be equally flattering back.
AM: Who knew that there were so many drunk mythology podcasts in the world.
JS: We kind of love it though.
AM: We do.
JS: We love that there's a community of it. We kind of – someone was trying to start a myth chat hashtag on Twitter, which I totally think should be a thing.
AM: I think it's great, and Julia does a wonderful job running our Twitter, answering your mythology recommendation questions, giving you books and articles and scholarly journals to read, answering with great GIFs. I, I respect your Twitter name, girl.
JS: Thank you. I'm into it. It's so much better than doing work.
AM: We're also so close to our first goal on Patreon. We're about halfway and momentum is creeping up each week. I love to graph things as we all know.
JS: You're a grapher.
AM: And, you know, we're getting more and more patrons more and more frequently. We would love for you guys to join us over there. Every single dollar you pledge, whether it's $1 every episode or 10 or 15, become a producer, it really, really helps us to pay for our microphone, our editing, our hosting and soon hopefully our booze.
JS: Yeah. We finally get to pay Eric. We're going to make it rain on him when he comes to visit us in New York in October.
AM: Yeah. Parent-Trap style with like a bucket over the door where --
JS: Just like $5 bills y'all .
AM: Get ready. Without further ado, enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 15: Maui.
Intro Music
JS: Amanda and I are huge fans --
AM: Oh, oh.
JS: -- of one Lin-Manuel Miranda. I mean who isn't us.
AM: Of course, longtime fans as well.
JS: Yes.
AM: We've been fans – at least personally, me, since the High School Musical 2: Bet On It in the Heights YouTube Promo Video.
JS: I don't know what that is, but all right.
AM: Which – oh, Lin-Manuel like parodied a music video from High School Musical --
JS: I'm not surprised.
AM: -- in order to promote the Broadway opening of his show, In The Heights.
JS: Yes.
AM: And it was like several months before tickets for In the Heights went on sale. I think it was '09 maybe, and we were still in high school. And, yeah, he just like danced stupidly in Central Park and Jonathan Groff was in it.
JS: Oh, that, that video.
AM: And he was like, look at me, I’m with Jonathan Groff. Oh, damn, he's so cute. Oh, I'm sorry, but it's true. Don't look [Inaudible 3:27] --
JS: Oh, god, stop.
AM: -- [inaudible] awakening. Anyway.
JS: Okay.
AM: We're big fans.
JS: Big fans. So, as some of you may be aware if you are also big fans, there is a new Disney movie coming out with lyrics--
AM: Moana!
JS: -written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
AM: Also starring The Rock.
JS: Yes. The Rock, who plays the demigod, Maui.
AM: Great.
JS: Guess what we're going to talk about today.
AM: Is it, is it, is it Maui myths?
JS: Yeah!
AM: Yes. Also side note, the perfect intersection of interests between editor, Eric, and ourselves, Eric's become a Hamilton fan. But, you know, even if he weren't, we love musicals, he loves wrestling. Together, we all love The Rock, and Lin, and Moana.
JS: Yeah. So, we're stoked to see Moana, which is coming out in November, I believe.
AM: So excited.
JS: So, we're going to give you a little bit of background about The Rock's character, Maui. I believe what they're doing is using some Hawaiian mythology for this.
AM: Yeah.
JS: But we're going to be talking a little bit of mix of both. So, Hawaii and Maori.
AM: Cool. So, the Greater Pacific.
JS: Yes.
AM: Indigenous.
JS: Pacific Islander.
AM: Pacific Islander, yeah, mythology. Love it.
JS: All right. We're gonna get started.
AM: I'm so pumped.
JS: Kind of giving some background.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, before Maui's birth. Humankind, which is also known as Tū, was expanding, was spreading out, was giving birth. But no one had ever died.
AM: Okay.
JS: It wasn’t --
AM: Since populating the Earth, he can't quite afford to take – you know, take away from that original stock quite yet.
JS: So, it wasn't until Maui's generation that human beings began to die off. And it's kind of Maui's fault.
AM: All right.
JS: So, he was the son of the god – pronunciation is not my thing. I'm going to put that out there right now because there's a lot of long names in this.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, he was the son of the god Makeatutara --
AM: Cool.
JS: -- who is the guardian of the underworld.
AM: Great.
JS: So, like --
AM: Great start.
JS: -- kind of a chill god otherwise.
AM: I mean he's got nothing to do.
JS: Yeah.
AM: He's sort of like a doorman in an empty building.
JS: He's got nothing else to do. So, he's just kind of like going around having sex with women, giving birth to demigods.
AM: Oh, all right. Hold on. So, before we continue, this is sort of like a Greek-style like embodied God situation.
JS: Right. So, a demigod is when a mortal person --
AM: Not Myrtle.
JS: Not Myrtle like Moaning Myrtle. A mortal person --
AM: Got it.
JS: -- has sex with a God and the offspring is called a demigod. So, usually, they have --
AM: [Inaudible 6:02].
JS: -- powers.
AM: Yeah.
JS: But they're not immortal like the gods are.
AM: Which is like, if you had to choose --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- that's the one you would choose, right?
JS: So, it's like Achilles is technically a demigod.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, Maui's actually born prematurely, and, so, his mother, Taranga, doesn't think he's actually like going to survive. He's not going to.
AM: Right. Yeah.
JS: So, she wraps him in her hair, cuts it off, and then throws him into the ocean. Like kill him.
AM: All right. All right. I see it. There's some kind of like Moses situation going on. Like, you know, you give part of yourself away for this like great loss. I mean I think – I think it's quite a symbolism.
JS: Okay. So, the ocean spirits actually recognize him as being somewhat divine. So, they find him. They wrapped him up in seaweed, and then give him over to one of Maui's uncle's called Rangi --
AM: That's awesome.
JS: -- who's the Ocean God.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And he takes Maui and raises him until he's like adolescent.
AM: And, so, does the Uncle – uncle and the mom, they don't talk to each other.
JS: Yeah.
AM: She doesn't know that he survived.
JS: She doesn't know. She thinks that Maui's dead.
AM: Oh, dramatic potential.
JS: Of course.
AM: Chekhov's mother if you will. So, Chekhov's gun.
JS: That should be a thing.
AM: Also, I love – I love the seaweed thing here. Like the hair of the sea, you know. Like Walt Whitman says, the uncut hair of graves. That's always what I – like, so, he wrote this famous poem called Leaves of Grass. And he's writing kind of about how the grass is a metaphor for lots of different things. And, at some point, he calls it the uncut hair of graves --
JS: So good. Yeah.
AM: -- which is just like such a good image. And I want to get a tattoo along those lines at some point. Anyway, I love the seaweed being the uncut hair of graves of the sea.
JS: So, Maui's raised in the ocean.
AM: Yeah.
JS: He --
AM: Wait. In the ocean?
JS: In the ocean.
AM: Like under the sea?
JS: Yeah.
AM: 🎤Under the sea. Sorry. I couldn't – I couldn't help it.
JS: So, when he's old enough, Maui actually comes out of the ocean, and he goes to his mother's house because Rangi probably told him. Listen, this is your mother.
AM: Right. He's like, "Bro, 18. Yeah."
JS: Go, go check on her. Make sure she knows who you are.
AM: By the way, you're not an ocean orphan. Your mom is my sister, and she's alive.
JS: Rangi's actually the dad's brother, not the --
AM: My, my sister-in-law, and she's alive.
JS: Cool. So, he goes to his mother's house. He actually meets all his brothers because she has other kids besides Maui. They're actually all named Maui, but like Maui blah, blah, blah, Maui blah, blah, blah. It's like if you met a family, and they were John Paul, John Ralphio.
AM: Yeah.
JS: John --
AM: John Ralphio. Well, that's your second one.
JS: I can't think of any other John names. But that makes sense.
AM: John Paul Sartre. John Paul, the Pope.
JS: A sitcom's called – do you know?
AM: I know. I know. It's just this endless John Paul. The Rock, the John Paul of the Pacific Islands.
JS: Basically. So, Maui's trying to impress, impress his brothers and --
AM: Of course, yeah.
JS: How can I impress these guys? I'm going to turn into a bunch of birds. So, he does that. He just turns into a bunch of birds.
AM: Great.
JS: His brother's like --
AM: What kind of birds? A bunch of parakeets, not very impressive.
JS: A hawk – a hawk, a pigeon, a seagull. Like that kind of stuff.
AM: Oh, like a full range.
JS: Yeah. He's got --
AM: Nice.
JS: He's got potential there.
AM: Nice. A full menagerie.
JS: So, he does that. His brother's like, "Shit. This guy is cool."
AM: Yeah.
JS: His mother comes onto the scene. It’s like she's sort of looking at him. And she's like, "Hmm, this is an interesting child that my brothers are – that my sons are hanging out with."
AM: Yeah.
JS: Doesn't recognize Maui as one of her children.
AM: Why not?
JS: Because it's been a while.
AM: I mean, obvious --
JS: He's an adult now.
AM: I guess it just immediately leads us to believe that you just like, you know, set eyes upon a child in the crowd and you're like, "Oh, that's my son I have 17 years ago." Like --
JS: Yeah, but no.
AM: We don't have any first-hand experience. We don't know.
JS: No. So, Maui kind of hangs out with the brothers for a while, and then eventually reveals himself to his mother. Like, listen, I'm your child. She's like, "Oh, this is awesome."
AM: Oh, so, he didn't talk to her first.
JS: Right. Hang out – he's hanging out with them.
AM: Oh, that makes a lot more sense. I was gonna say like, "How would she not believe that this strapping, young, magical demigod is not her son?"
JS: So --
AM: I picture him as The Rock by the way. I just --
JS: Oh, yeah.
AM: Yeah. Okay.
JS: That totally makes sense.
AM: Yeah.
JS: He's actually supposed to be super ugly. So, probably The Rock doesn't work with that. But – because The Rock is hot as shit.
AM: Or like Hollywood movie style, The Rock with like nerd glasses --
JS: Sure.
AM: -- or like a broken nose.
JS: The Rock had nerd – Maui had nerd glasses. So --
AM: That just makes him hotter. No, no, no, no. Bad strategy.
JS: So, he reveals himself to his mother.
AM: Okay.
JS: He's welcomed by his brothers officially. And, being part of the family, now, he goes on the typical hero's journey where he like goes and does a bunch of crazy shit.
AM: Nice. Yeah, to prove himself. Right.
JS: So, in the Maori tradition, his first exploit is he restrains the sun.
AM: Okay.
JS: And this is a really interesting story. So, basically, human beings weren't able to get all their work done in a single day because the sun moved across the sky too fast and days were too short.
AM: I mean there's just like endless toil necessary --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- and cultivating enough calories to survive in early humankind.
JS: So, Maori – so, Maui seeing this, seeing his brothers struggle out in the field and not getting enough work done --
AM: Oh, so, he did like a tug of war with the sun and keep it up for longer.
JS: What he does is he takes one of his giant god relative's jawbones --
AM: Okay.
JS: -- and he makes it into a giant fishing hook.
AM: Cool.
JS: And he lassos the sun basically with the hook-like he's fishing.
AM: So, badass.
JS: Gets his brothers to help him pull. Stops the sun. Pulls it out of the sky. Beats the sun up --
AM: Okay.
JS: -- until the sun agrees to shorten the days. To stop moving so quick across the sky and shorten the days.
AM: And lengthen the days. And lengthen the days.
JS: Oh, yes. Lengthen the days. Correct.
AM: So, is the sun a god in this situation?
JS: Yes. Well, it depends on the story. In some instances, it's a god. In some instances, it's literally the sun but like with something [Inaudible12:10].
AM: Like a celestial body. Right.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Interesting.
JS: Yeah.
AM: What a nice service to humanity.
JS: Yeah.
AM: I would be like, "Hmm. How do I prove my – you know, my goodness? Let me conjure up a mountain of gold and like sit on it or, you know, endless fountains of like decadent ice cream."
JS: Well, you have to remember he's a demigod, not like a god, god. So, he can’t – he’s not --
AM: Well, still a pretty impressive feat though.
JS: He's not like omnipotent. He doesn't have all these crazy powers.
AM: My point is it’s like – it's like a good guy action --
JS: Right.
AM: -- and not just, you know, let me show off and like turn the grass a bunch of colors or something.
JS: But he also did it – he did it because like – well, he did it by beating up the sun.
AM: That's true. That's true.
JS: It's not the nicest thing. Think of it like probably done – had a polite conversation with the sun.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JS: You know, he didn't.
AM: Or, like, "Hey, sun, here's a bunch of breadcrumbs. Why don't you stop and eat them on your way across this sky?' I guess that sounds pitching now.
JS: Okay. All right. So, his next trick – this is more of a Hawaiian story. But his next trick is he takes his giant fishing hook and he tricks his brothers into taking him fishing and accidentally catches the ocean floor.
AM: Oh.
JS: And, to kind of save face he tells his brothers' like I caught this huge fish you guys need to help me pull it in.
AM: Oh, I see where this is going.
JS: Like turn the other way and just keep pulling.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And they pull so hard that they pull an island out. And Maui, super impressed by what he managed to do, makes them do it several times until all of Hawaiian --
AM: Maybe make a total Hawaii.
JS: Yup. All the Hawaiian Islands.
AM: Love it. Is that why one of the islands is called Maui.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Oh, so good.
JS: So, he does that. And then he sees all these little islands. And he's like we can probably put these together if we tried.
AM: Okay.
JS: So, what he does is he tries to fish up the god of fishes, whose name is Pimoe, hoping that, by pulling up this god, he'll like, use his fish to kind of push the islands together. It's a little vague. It's a little unclear.
AM: So, like, like a comet almost. Like he catches the head of the comet, and the tail of the comet is all the fishes.
JS: Right.
AM: And like, by thus pulling them out, he'll like create a bit of a bridge.
JS: Yes.
AM: A fish. It'd be very slippery.
JS: That sounds right.
AM: Okay.
JS: So, he does that but, instead of catching the god of fishes – I keep saying fishes. I mean fish. The god of fish.
AM: Listen, English is a friggin’ bastard tongue. You can pluralize however you want.
JS: Instead of catching him, he catches the goddess Hina --
AM: Okay.
JS: -- who is the moon goddess. And, in some stories, it's also Maui's wife.
AM: Great.
JS: He lands her in the boat. And the brothers are so distracted by this like a really pretty naked lady--
AM: Yeah.
JS: --that they dropped their line and the islands kind of separated again, and they're unsuccessful.
AM: Interesting. I love this like, physicality of geography.
JS: Yeah.
AM: You know, like, you know, these, these islands are here scattered in such a way that they – you know, what is the story behind their creation? Like it's such a human urge.
JS: I feel like, also, Maui is such a dude-bro god. Like I can't fix this thing by really thinking about it. So, I'm going to just use brute strength in order to put things together and problem solved.
AM: But, also, like you could picture him as just sort of like an adolescent, right, or like a late teenager who went from living with his crazy uncle Luke Skywalker at the bottom of the sea to, "Oh, my god, I have brothers and a mom and a tradition. And someone can like, show me how to use these powers/a new audience." Like, imagine if you have only one person to tell your jokes to for 18 years or something.
JS: That would be really bad.
AM: If it was you, that'd be fine. But, otherwise, you know – like, of course, you want to show off. Of course, you want to just get like brilliant, you know, and, and go for it.
JS: I mean you got all these powers, I guess you got to use them.
AM: Yeah. I bet he eats a lot.
JS: He does.
AM: I'm thinking of my teenage brothers and like how much food we went through. There are four of us abusing this.
JS: I'm thinking of The Flash and how he's super fast and has to increase his caloric intake because he burns calories and everything.
AM: Yeah, much like The Rock.
JS: Yes. The Rock probably eats so much shit.
AM: Oh, my god, his Instagram is all food and then his – and puppies and his baby daughter, and then like, in cheat days, he'll eat like a mountain of pie.
JS: God bless, The Rock.
AM: Oh, The Rock, what a service to humanity. He is a demigod, right? Like --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- there's no argument. Okay.
JS: Him and Jason Momoa just hot ass demigod.
AM: Jason Momoa. Where does all that muscle mass come from?
JS: I don't know.
AM: It must be – must be godlike.
JS: It's like the fish diet of the Pacific Islanders, they're all eating all the fishes.
AM: Yeah. Plus that Mediterranean diet. You gotta get on that Pacific Islander man meat diet.
JS: Hmm. Man-meat.
AM: As soon as I said it, I was like, "No. It's not what we meant."
JS: I was like I'm gonna – I'm gonna say it anyway.
AM: Not what we meant. Not what we meant.
JS: So --
AM: I wouldn't say no, but if not what we meant.
JS: As handsome as The Rock and Jason Momoa are, Maui was not hot. In a version of the story, Maui is not married to Hina. He's married to a woman called Rohe.
AM: Okay.
JS: He's kind of a dick to her. She's super beautiful. He's really not hot. So, he is trying to like bully her into switching faces with him, which Rohe is not into.
AM: I wouldn't want to be married to someone with my face. Like --
JS: Also, if I'm super pretty, I don't want someone to take my face away.
AM: Exactly.
JS: It's kind of dickish.
AM: And also would be a downgrade. Yeah.
JS: Yeah. So, she's like, "No, I'm not going to do that."
AM: Right.
JS: But Maui waits until she falls asleep --
AM: Ugh.
JS: -- and then says the incantation over her. She wakes up in the morning, sees what he's done, is so livid about it that she actually runs away to the Underworld and becomes the goddess of death.
AM: Great.
JS: Which is a great story.
AM: Why are we not worshipping her every day of our lives?
JS: She's fantastic. I'm so into her.
AM: Wait. With his face or with her own?
JS: With his face.
AM: I mean I guess that's the ultimate retribution.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Saying like, "You want to give me this face? Fuck you. I'll make this face the face of death."
JS: That's pretty mean.
AM: It’s great.
JS: But the perfect revenge.
AM: It is.
JS: Erzulie Dantor would approve.
AM: Exactly. She would. Erzulie Dantor would be like, "F yes, girl/are you single? I can ignore your face."
JS: She'd be into it either way. She's got all those scars and stuff.
AM: Heck yeah.
JS: Best mythological couple ever.
AM: I am calling it now.
JS: Ship it.
AM: From Haiti to the Pacific, I ship it.
JS: Maui, he's been living at home with his mom and his brothers. He notices that his mother, whose name is Taranga. I don't know if I said that before.
AM: I don't remember either.
JS: He sees that Taranga kind of disappears every morning.
AM: Okay.
JS: He's really interested in where she's going. So, he turns himself into a wood pigeon --
AM: Okay.
JS: -- follows her.
AM: Fine, makes a lot of sense. So he can follow somebody, a bird's fine.
JS: He finds out that his mother has been meeting up with his father after all this time.
AM: I love this subplot in media where a long-estranged parents end up like dating or casually seeing each other. And the kids were like, "Why?"
JS: Which is basically what happens here.
AM: Which the television next to us has Lie To Me that criminally under – I don't know. Under --
JS: Under loved.
AM: -- produced and under loved --
JS: Fair enough.
AM: -- TV show with the great Tim Roth. Anyway, the point being, when, you know, estranged parents are together again for whatever reason, the kids were like, "I don't know. I don't like it."
JS: So, Maui's actually really excited about this.
AM: Okay.
JS: Because he's never met his father.
AM: True. I forgot.
JS: And he is waiting to meet with his father. It's really exciting for him. But it's got a downside.
AM: It must.
JS: His father reveals that, while he was doing Maui's baptismal ceremony --
AM: Yeah.
JS: -- he flubbed some of the incantation shit, which means Maui's gonna die.
AM: What? Oh, he's, he's not immortal.
JS: Yeah. Because like the protection of the baptismal incantation --
AM: God damn it, dad.
JS: Yeah.
AM: That's the one thing you don't get done.
JS: He fucked up.
AM: God.
JS: Dumb fuck shouldn't have ruined it.
AM: Come on, Dad.
JS: Maui is unable to accept that he's gonna die. He's not accepted it at all.
AM: Why? I think he has a hero complex. So, why would he not? Yeah.
JS: Yeah. So, he decides he's gonna win true immortality for all humans.
AM: Great.
JS: His father --
AM: It's like saying I cannot have ice cream right now. Fuck you! Mandatory ration for the rest of humanity.
JS: Basically. So, his father is just worried because it's too dangerous of a task.
AM: Okay.
JS: And he knows Maui's gonna die.
AM: Come on, Icarus, what are you going for?
JS: So, Maui somehow convinces his father and he asks him, "Dad, how, how do I do this? How do I make sure that no one else ever dies?" And he says --
AM: It's a big ask.
JS: Listen, you – if you want to do that, you have to kill your aunt, who is the goddess of night and whose name is Hine-nui-te-pō.
AM: Okay.
JS: She is a giant woman.
AM: Great.
JS: She has eyes like green stone.
AM: Greenstone?
JS: Greenstone.
AM: Okay. Lapis lazuli or whatever the thing.
JS: Lapis Lazuli. Which, Amanda, you need to start watching Steven Universe so you know how to pronounce weird gemstones.
AM: Like Emerald.
JS: Sure. Her hair is like sea kelp.
AM: Great.
JS: And she has a barracuda's mouth. SharePoint it.
AM: Oh, that's – oh.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And giant?
JS: Yeah.
AM: That's too many things.
JS: Yes.
AM: That's too many things.
JS: She's got to be creepy. She's the goddess of night.
AM: Where does she live?
JS: She lives on the horizon. Like where the sun rises and sets because the goddess of night.
AM: Always watching you. Always within an arm's reach.
JS: Uhhmmm. So --
AM: Now, I want to like get rid of all the greens from my house.
JS: Oh, no. So, in order to kill her, Maui has to – because she's giant.
AM: Right.
JS: She – he has to get into her and killed her from within.
AM: Okay. Yeah. Make sense.
JS: Because she's got that barracuda mouth though, he can't go in through her mouth.
AM: Oh.
JS: So, Maui – you kind of see where this is going, let me get there. Maui goes to kill her.
AM: Give me the SparkNotes here.
JS: He takes his either – it depends on the story. He either takes a bunch of birds with him or his brothers.
AM: Okay.
JS: The story ends the same either way.
AM: Henchmen. Right.
JS: He is like, "Listen, this is how it's going to go down. I'm going to turn into a worm. I'm going to crawl up this lady's vagina --
AM: Okay.
JS: -- and kill her from with – inside."
AM: Okay. Sort of like rotten apple metaphor for fertility. I'm seeing where this is going.
JS: Sure. He tells his brothers/the birds --
AM: Yeah.
JS: Listen, you can't laugh at this because they'll be watching. I know you want to laugh at this because I'm crawling into the vagina of an old lady – old giant.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: But you can't because you'll wake her up. And they're like, "Okay, okay,. We promise. We promise."
AM: Again, such dramatic potential.
JS: Maui turns into the worm, realizes as he's approaching said area --
AM: The entrance. Yeah.
JS: -- that her vagina is actually lined with obsidian teeth.
AM: A, great. B, ugh!
JS: So, he turns his brothers/the birds and says, "Do not laugh!"
AM: And they're like, "Okay. Okay. We won't laugh."
JS: Starts crawling into it. The brothers/birds --
AM: Wait. Is this real? Is this really real?
JS: This is a thing.
AM: Okay. All right. All right. I'm nervous.
JS: The brothers/birds watch him. Start giggling.
AM: Right.
JS: He said, "No. No." Burst out laughing.
AM: Oh, no. She wakes up. Clinches.
JS: She, she then wakes up, slaps her legs together.
AM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
JS: Maui is cut in half and is the first being to ever die.
AM: He dies there? What?
JS: Yeah.
AM: I'm speechless.
JS: Yeah.
AM: What an undignified way to go with your bros laughing at you, and your aunt's legs clasp around your ears, in the form of a worm.
JS: It's pretty bad. And, because of how shitty that death was, all human beings die now.
AM: That is so much more of a – of a – that story so much more character than like even the apple.
JS: Yes, 100 percent.
AM: Like it's --
JS: It's so much better than original sin.
AM: It is so much better than original sin.
JS: Yeah.
AM: It's so much less sanitized.
JS: Yes.
AM: Like there's --
JS: There's vaginas.
AM: Right. There's like fluids and animals --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- and jealousy and laughter and like machismo and kelp.
JS: Sure. Kelp.
AM: That briney hole from whence we came.
JS: It's – it's also such a good metaphor for birth and death.
AM: It is. It is.
JS: Because, vaginas.
AM: It is. And, also, like, like the matriarchy wins, you know?
JS: Yes.
AM: Like, again, this is how you enter the world. And so help me, God, this is how, you know, you can end.
JS: Also, two out of the three Underworld people that we talked about in this story --
AM: Are women.
JS: Are ladies.
AM: Heck yeah!
JS: Which I'm so into.
AM: Pacific Islands, y'all got it right.
JS: Yeah. And, so, after Maui's dead, Hine's vagina actually becomes the entrance to the Underworld.
AM: Wow.
JS: Which is so --
AM: That's just – wow.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Every time I see stalagmites and stalactites, I'm going to imagine the obsidian version and say, "Nope. I'm not going into that Devilish Hellmouth."
JS: Takes a new meaning to the word Hellmouth I think.
AM: That barracuda mouth is such an image.
JS: I know. It's so good. She's, she's like the – she's the cherry on top to the Maui story.
AM: Oh, why did you put cherry into this. The fuck.
JS: I didn't mean that.
AM: So good though.
JS: So, good.
AM: Oh, I feel like I can't even make all the connections that I want to be making because it's so like, overwhelming and scary.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But also wonderful.
JS: I also love that I probably ruined the Disney movie for you all. You're welcome!
AM: And then he dies in the end?
JS: No. In that Maui's a dick and dies by crawling through a vagina.
AM: Like, obviously --
JS: But Disney is not going to tell you that story.
AM: But, obviously, I mean nobody else is gonna write this version.
JS: Oh, yeah.
AM: Yeah. It's like, you know? Hamilton had some similar pitfalls. He didn't literally die in a woman's nether regions but he, you know? Politically he did.
JS: He might as well have.
AM: Politically he did.
JS: Yes.
AM: And I also love that it wasn't like a woman being mercurial, right, and like withholding --
JS: Right.
AM: A little. But like friggin she's laying there asleep and she woke up and was like, "What?" And then, you know, imagine to --
JS: Why are you in my vagina?
AM: Inflicts death upon humanity because --
JS: Yeah.
AM: -- when you violate a sleeping, underworld goddess, you know, what do you – what do you expect?
JS: What would you do in general?
AM: I know.
JS: Fuck with that.
AM: I know.
Outro Music
AM: Spirits was created by Julia Schifini and me, Amanda McLoughlin. It's edited by Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
JS: Subscribe to Spirits on your preferred podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, @SpiritsPodcast.
AM: On our Patreon page patreon.com/spiritspodcast, you can sign up for exclusive content like behind the scenes photos, audio, extras, director's commentary, blooper reels and beautiful recipe cards with custom drink and snack pairings.
JS: If you like the show, please share with your friends and leave us a review on iTunes. It really does help.
AM: Thank you so much for listening, ‘til next time
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil