Birth
Māui is the son of Taranga, the wife of Makeatutara. He was born premature, and his mother threw him into the sea wrapped in a tress of hair from her topknot (tikitiki). This is why Māui's full name is Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga. Ocean spirits found and wrapped the child in seaweed and jellyfish to keep him safe. His grandfather found him on a beach and adopted him.
Discovery of his siblings
When Māui became old enough, he travelled to his family's home and found his four brothers, Māui-taha, Māui-roto, Māui-pae, and Māui-waho, and his sister, Hina. His brother's didn't know him and were very wary of him. (They didn't trust him right away.)
Later at night Māui saw them dancing and being merry. He crept in and sat down behind his brothers, and soon Taranga called the children and found a strange child. At first she does not recognise him, and attempts to cast him from the house. But he proved he was her son. Māui was then taken in as one of the family. Some of the brothers were jealous, but the eldest addressed the others as follows:
Never mind; let him be our dear brother. In the days of peace remember the proverb, 'When you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a friendly way; when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by violence.' It is better for us, brothers, to be kind to other people. These are the ways by which men gain influence – by laboring for an abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others.
— Polynesian Mythology (1854)
Quest to find his parents
Māui was a shapeshifter. He took on the appearance of a kererū when he went to find his parents in the underworld. The white on his chest was his mother's apron.
After Māui performed feats such as transforming himself into different kinds of birds, his brothers acknowledged his power and admired him. He became vexed that his mother always left before dawn and returned the next night, he one day blocked the entrances and sources of light into their house to keep her there, and stole her clothes. With the sun up, he was able to see where she went every day, and it turned out that she'd pull a clump of tussock from the ground, and descend a large tunnel to the underworld.
Māui was encouraged to follow their mother to the underworld in the form of a kererū. Once he arrived there he found a group of people sitting on a patch of grass in a grove of manapau trees, from which he dropped berries onto his parents' heads.
Upon Māui transforming back into a human, his mother recognised him as the child who used to live with her other sons.
Māui slows the Sun
Once upon a time, the sun used to travel quickly across the sky, leaving not enough daylight time for working and eating. Māui proposed to catch the sun and slow it down. Armed with the jaw-bone of Murirangawhenua and a large amount of rope, which is in some tellings made from his sister Hina's hair, Māui and his brothers journeyed to the east and found the pit where the sun-god Tama-nui-te-rā slept during the night-time. There they tied the ropes into a noose around the pit and built a wall of clay to shelter behind. Tama-nui-te-rā was caught in the noose. Māui didn't let him free until he surrendered and agreed to travel slowly across the sky.
Māui fishes up the North Island
Once upon a time, Māui's older brothers always refused to let him come fishing with them. One night, he wove for himself a flax fishing line and enchanted it with a karakia to give it strength; to this he attached the magic fish-hook made from the jaw-bone that his grandmother Murirangawhenua had given him. Then he hid away in the hull of his brothers' waka (canoe). The next morning, when the waka was too far from land to return, he emerged from his hiding-place. His brothers would not lend him any bait, so he struck himself on the nose and baited the hook with his blood. Māui hauled a great fish, known as Hāhau-whenua, up from the depths.
In some stories, this is the North Island of New Zealand is known as Te Ika-a-Māui (The Fish of Māui).
When it emerged from the water, Māui left to find a tohunga to perform the appropriate ceremonies and prayers, leaving his brothers in charge. If the brothers had listened to Māui, the island would have been a level plain, and people would have been able to travel across it with ease. But they did not wait for Māui to return, and began to cut up the fish, which writhed in agony, causing it to break up into mountains, cliffs and valleys.
In the stories of the Northern Māori, Māui's waka became the South Island, with Banks Peninsula marking the place supporting his foot as he pulled up that extremely heavy fish. Besides the official name of Te Waipounamu, another Māori name for the South Island is Te Waka-a-Māui, the canoe of Māui.
In the stories of the Southern Māori, the South Island is known instead as Te Waka o Aoraki and predates Māui's expedition. Māui sailed a canoe called Mahaanui and after he had pulled up the North Island (Te Ika a Maui) he left Mahaanui on top of a mountain in the foothills behind what is now Ashburton. (That mountain now bears the name Mahaanui, and the coastline between Banks Peninsula and the Waitaki River is called Te tai o Mahaanui (the tides of Mahaanui).)
Māui brings fire to the world
Māui stole fire from the fingernails of Mahuika
Māui wanted to know where fire came from, so one night he went among the villages of his people and put all the fires out. Māui's mother Taranga said that someone would have to ask her mother Mahuika, the goddess of fire, for more. Māui offered to go and find her. Mahuika lived in a cave in a burning mountain at the end of the Earth. She gave Māui one of her burning fingernails to relight the fires. But Māui kept putting out the fires on each fingernail until Mahuika became angry and sent magical fire to chase Māui.
Māui transformed himself into a hawk to escape, but Mahuika set both land and sea on fire. Māui prayed to his great ancestors Tāwhirimātea, god of weather, and Whaitiri-matakataka, goddess of thunder, who poured rain to extinguish the fire. Mahuika threw her last nail at Māui, but it missed him and flew into some trees including the māhoe and the kaikōmako. Māui brought back dry sticks of these trees to his village and showed his people how to rub the sticks together and make fire.
Irawaru, the first dog
Māui went fishing with his brother-in-law Irawaru. During the expedition, Māui became annoyed with him.
In some stories, Māui was jealous of Irawaru's success at fishing, in others, it was because their fishing-lines became entangled, in still others, Māui was angry at Irawaru's refusal to give him a cloak, or disgusted at Irawaru's greedy nature.
Whatever the provocation, when Māui and Irawaru returned to shore, Māui stretched out Irawaru's limbs and transformed him into the first dog. When Hina asked Māui if he had seen her husband, Māui told her to call "Moi! Moi!", whereupon Irawaru, in dog form, came running.
Quest for human immortality and death
After his early exploits, Māui considered himself ready to win immortality for humankind. His father tried to dissuade him, predicting that he will fail because of the mistakes in his baptismal ceremony. His father says to him, "My son, I know that you are a brave fellow and that you have done all things. Yet I am afraid that there is someone who will defeat you."
"Who could that be?" asked Māui.
"Your ancestress Hine-nui-te-pō (Goddess of the Night). You can see her flashing there on the horizon."
"Is she as strong as the sun?" asked Māui. "I trapped him and beat him. Is she greater than the sea, which is greater than the land? Yet I have dragged land from it. Now let us see whether we will find life or death."
His father answered, "You are right, my last-born and the strength of my old age. Go, find your ancestress who lives at the side of the sky."
"What does she look like?" asked Māui.
"The red flashing in the western sky comes from her," said the father. "Her body is like a human being, but her eyes are greenstone, her hair sea-kelp, and her mouth is like a barracouta's mouth."
Māui, undaunted, set out westward, with his companions, to the home of Hine-nui-te-pō. In some stories, his companions are the smallest birds of the forest, the tomtit, the robin, the grey warbler and the fantail. In other stories, his companions are his brothers.
The find Hine asleep, and Māui prepares to attack her. He tells his friends, "do not laugh at me. Wait until I cut right through her. Then you may laugh as much as you want."
"You will be killed!" was all the companions could say.
"If you laugh I will indeed be killed. But if I pass right through her body I will live, and she will die."
Then he readied himself, winding the cord of his battle club tightly around his wrist. As Māui began his task, the cheeks of his watching friends puckered with suppressed laughter. Because he was going right through her, one of his brothers - or the fantail bird - cannot hold back any longer and burst out in laughter. The old lady wakes, opens her eyes, claps her legs together and cuts Māui in two. Now Māui has become the first being to die and, because he had failed in his task, all human beings are mortal. The goddess keeps her position at the portal to the underworld through which all humans must travel.