As soon as his mother got outside the house, little Maui jumped up, and kneeling upon his hands and knees peeped after her through the doorway into the bright light. Whilst he was watching her, she reached down to a clump of rushes, and snatching it up from the ground, dropped into a hole underneath it, and clapping the rushes into the hole again as if it were its covering, so disappeared. Then little Maui jumped on his feet, and, as hard as he could go, ran out of the house, pulled up the clump of rushes, and peeping down, discovered a beautiful open cave running quite deep into the earth. He covered up the hole again and returned to the house, and waking up his brothers who were still sleeping, said: “Come, come, my brothers, rouse up, you have slept long enough; come, get up; here we are again cajoled by our mother.” Then his brothers made haste and got up; alas! alas! the sun was quite high up in the heavens. The little Maui now asked his brothers again, “Where do you think the place is where our father and mother dwell?” and they answered: “How should we know, we have never seen it; although we are Maui-taha, and Maui-roto, and Maui-pae, and Maui-waho, we have never seen the place; and do you think you can find that place which you are so anxious to see? What does it signify to you? Cannot you stop quietly with us? What do we care about our father, or about our mother? Did she feed us with food till we grew up to be men? not a bit of it. Why, without doubt, Rangi, or the Heaven, is our father, who kindly sent his offspring down to us: Hau-whenna, or gentle breezes, to cool the earth and young plants; and Hau-ma-ringiringi, or mists, to moisten them; and Hau-ma-roto-roto, or fine weather, to make them grow; and Tonarangi, or rain, to water them; and Tomairangi, or dews, to nourish them. He gave these his offspring to cause our food to grow, and then Papa-tu-a-nuku, or the Earth, made her seeds to spring, and grow forth, and provide sustenance for her children in this long-continuing world.” Little Maui then answered: “What you say is truly quite correct; but such thoughts and sayings would better become me than you, for in the foaming bubbles of the sea I was nursed and fed: it would please me better if you would think over and remember the time when you were nursed at your mother’s breast; it could not have been until after you had ceased to be nourished by her milk that you could have eaten the kinds of food you have mentioned; as for me, oh! my brothers, I have never partaken either of her milk or of her food; yet I love her, for this single reason alone—that she is my mother; and because I love her, I wish to know the place where she and my father dwell.”