Editing User blog:Berrybrick/BIONICLE: Around the Amaja

Quick question. Anyone know where Makuta's name comes from?

I was extremely busy this week doing a project for a class (which we will call "ancient religions" for the sake of pc). Each student had to select a creation story from a less "mainstream" culture (so not Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, or Scandinavia) and I landed Māori, which is out of my usual comfort zone of European and Mediterranean stories. I did find the Māori lore to be quite interesting though (and it has the absolutely most disturbing death scene I have ever read). While most civilizations seemed to believe that before the Earth was created there was one of three things (term applied loosely): Water, chaos, or nothing. I suppose that from the three of those, an argument could be made for chaos, but the Maori believed that there was nothing except for possibility, and so forth came ideas and then the desire to create, and from creation came life. After reading that intro, I knew that I was lucky to be assigned this story. Also, if you somehow missed it, I would like to draw attention to "the desire to create." That is very LEGO (and I suggest that you read my "BIONICLE analysis" blog which delves into that topic more, if you have not already).

[[File:Mata Nui location.png|left|200px|thumb|See labelled version [http://biosector01.com/wiki/images/a/aa/Map-1.jpg here]]]
As most BIONICLE fans probably know, plenty of the theme's terminology is derived from the Maori language. "Tahu" means "burn," "Toa" means "hero," "Kanohi" means "face," etc.. The same BIONICLE fans who know this are probably aware of the controversy surrounding it. The Maori people were bothered with the way certain words (such as "Tohunga," which means "expert") were used, and so they were changed. More can be read [[BIONICLE#Māori Lawsuit|here]]. Though most others words did not receive such drastic changes and were either phased out (like "Kewa") or had the spelling changed (like "Hewkii"), words and names including Tahu and Toa would remain staples of the theme.

"Makuta" itself does not seem to translate to anything in Maori, but during my research I found a story where the "knowledge of evil" is called "Makutu" (Google Translate translates "Makutu" to "witchcraft"). As someone who vastly prefers the depiction of Makuta in Mata Nui Online Game, where he is a corrupting force that lives beneath the island, to further appearances, I am satisfied by this. Though Makuta was clearly a corrupting force in the earlier years when he took control of the Rahi, manipulated the Bahrag, and unleashed the Rahkshi, there is also evidence that suggests that originally Mata Nui Online Game would not have featured the six tribes of fire, water, ice, air, stone, and earth, but also seventh. The seventh would be kept a secret until later in the game, but it is said that Ahkmou would have been a member. 

[[File:BIONICLE24.jpg|right|thumb|Ahkmou in Metru Nui]]
Remember Ahkmou? He was that Po-Matoran trader with Nokama's mask who betrayed the other Po-Matoran by selling infected Kohlii (then called "Koli") balls which could have made the Matoran Makuta's slaves like the Rahi if Takua, Pohatu, and Onewa did not intervene. Ahkmou later showed up in Mata Nui Online Game II where he is seemingly reformed, the 2004 prequel set in Metru Nui where he again betrays Matoran (and this incarnation even got a set, albeit in what is probably the worst version of the Matoran), and was namedropped in 2009's ''Reign of Shadows'' where Makuta imprisons the seven Turaga and appoints Ahkmou to replace him. There is also a rumor floating around that Ahkmou was originally supposed to appear in 2008 as a "Toa of Shadow" (the Shadow Leech that struck Takanuva was confirmed to be meant for him, I think). And there is more than you probably wanted to know about an ultimately insignificant character.

Anyway, the seventh tribe would have not been unified by an element, but instead in their worship of Makuta. [http://tcrf.net/images/6/6f/MNOG_IX7N.png There is an image online of a Ga-Matoran (apparently a slave captured by the seventh tribe) creating infected Koli balls,] but otherwise I am unsure what other evidence there is for this. Perhaps it was confirmed by the Templar Studios developers somewhere, but I tend to believe these things until proven otherwise, because a lot of the time they seem to be true. Though it should be considered that MNOG was originally meant to be non-canon (and as such, how canon it is is debatable) but since the movie and video game meant to tell the story, aside from loosely connected comics and a prequel video game, it became the vehicle through which the main story was told for the year. Once this happened, had the tribe been included, it would be interesting to see how they would have factored into the story. I probably shouldn't think too much about what could have been, since I am overall mostly satisfied by the story without it.

Another part of Mata Nui Online Game, though more minimal, that was excised is that Nokama mentions that Papu and Rangi must have plans for Takua. (This was later replaced by "someone" must have plans for Takua, but I hear-tell that after Nuju's message is delivered to her, Nokama will still mention them if Takua asks "Who am I?"). Pap''a'' and Rangi are the Maori versions of the "earth mother" and "sky father," respectively, but whatever function they were meant to serve in-story might not have been as analogous. In the German version of the game, Jala refers to Papu and Rangi as the ones who chose Ta-Koro to be the "place of fire." Perhaps they were members of the Toa Mangai (Lhii, who turned out to be a legend honoring [[Lhikan]] was mentioned in Jala/Jaller's bio as early as 2001) and Greg Farshtey has confirmed that regions on the island of Mata Nui are named after the Toa Mangai, Naho Bay being the only one where we know the specific name of a Toa, I think. Further evidence is the existence of Papa Nihu Reef, but the whole "Lhikan's Toa team and names = names of places around Mata Nui" was a fan theory that was canonized, so I find that ''extremely'' unlikely. I suppose that the only answer I can posit is that maybe the Matoran were originally intended to have a little more knowledge of the Great Beings, or the Turaga lead them to believe so, and Papu and Rangi just happened to be the names of two of them.

[[File:Ekimu&Makuta.png|200px|right]]
And I suppose that is really all I can say on the subject of Maori mythology in BIONICLE, since they really are two separate entities, the influence is minimal, and what I am talking about is really inconsequential. I could speak about things that seem to coincidentally lineup, such as how Mata Nui turned out to be an Earth <s>mother</s> father, or how the Maori version of the great flood includes humans somehow adapting to live underwater (Mahri Nui), but those are even more contrived and I don't really believe that they were intended. Now that the line is being rebooted, I thought that it would be fun to look back retrospectively so we can think about what directions BIONICLE could have gone in, where it is going now, or where it could go in your own stories. I know that after discovering Maori mythology, I myself will be using some inspiration from it in my own alternate continuity, a sandbox I suggest everyone play around with themselves.
{{Comments}}