Maui Magic

Historical Legends of the Islands

Maui's topography, which accounts for scenery so beautiful that the Polynesian demigod Maui--who is credited with having fished all of the Hawaiian Islands up from the sea--is thought to have called this one home. 

Geologists claim that Maui was created between 1 and 2 million years ago by the eruption of two volcanoes, Puu Kukui and Haleakala; a low central isthmus formed between them and joined them into West and East Maui.  The island had no indigenous plants or animals.  Birds brought some of the life that would inhabit Maui, as did the tides that washed upon its newly formed shores.  Polynesians began to arrive on Maui's shores bringing with them life sustaining plants in their canoes. 

In 1778 the Hawaiian Islands were rife with divided kingdoms waging war one against another, and the elderly Kalaniopuu was certainly plotting against Maui's principal chief, Kahekili.  Records show that Kalaniopuu was accompanied by his young warrior nephew, Kamehameha.  Perhaps it was the experience off Maui's coast that eventually fired Kamehameha's ambition to rule more than a tiny section of one island.