Mahuika

In Māori mythic time Mahuika is presented as the named person who possesses the secret of making fire and from whom Māui obtains fire. In many tellings Māui tricks Mahuika into giving her fingernails one by one, and these nails explain the link between human fingers and fire. She is married to Auahitūroa and together they parent five children named Ngā Mānawa (the five fingers). In some regional variants (notably in parts of the Tuamotu and Marquesas) the cognate Mahu-ika is male, located in the underworld, and is sometimes described as an ancestor or grandfather-figure of Māui who is overcome to secure fire.

The supplied sources do not provide a consistent physical description. Mythic accounts personify Mahuika with human-like attributes, notably fingernails/fingers (the narrative motif where Māui takes her fingernails), but no detailed corporeal description (colouration, garments, animal form, or precise size) is given in the sources consulted.

Mythically, Mahuika is depicted as the keeper or personification of fire who bestows (or is the source of) the secret of making fire in origin narratives; this role appears across related Polynesian traditions. She is presented as spouse of the fire-associated Auahitūroa and mother of Ngā Mānawa, linking fire symbolically to the human hand. In at least one narrative she petitions Rūaumoko, the god of earthquakes and eruptions, to avenge a wrong and thereby contributes to a volcanic/landform event (the formation of Rangitoto Island). Regional variants attribute to her an underworld location and differing genealogical relations to Māui.