| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| Demon name "Maru" | Polynesian / Maori | God of war. One of the important deities revered by Maori clans in New Zealand in times of war, he may be represented in totems as an aggressive face with a prominent tuft of hair, staring eyes and tongue protruding, though these totems generally represent ancestors rather than deities. Maru may be invoked in the familiar Maori war dances and chants demonstrated popularly by the All Blacks before rugby matches all over the world.... |
| God name "Maui" | Maori | Tutelary god Polynesia / Maori |
| Goddess name "Maui" | Polynesian / Maori / New Zealand | Tutelary god. Not a creator god but one who åśśists mankind in various supernatural ways. According to tradition he was aborted at birth and cast into the sea by his mother, who thought he was dead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. He is the deity who drew the islands of New Zealand from the floor of the ocean in a net. Maui caught the Sun and beat it into submission, making it travel more slowly across the sky so that the days became longer. He also brought fire from the underworld for mankind and tried, unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for him by entering the vulva of the underworld goddess HINE-NUI-TE-PO while she was asleep. She awoke and crushed him to death. Though a deity, he had been made vulnerable to death by a mistake during his rites of birth (see also Balder). Also Mawi.... |
| Goddess name "Papa" | Maori | Goddess of the earth Maori |
| Goddess name "Papatuanuku" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic mother goddess. According to tradition she evolved spontaneously in the cosmic night personified by TE PO and became the apotheosis of papa, the earth. In other traditions she was engendered, with the sky god RANGINUI, by a primordial androgynous being, ATEA. Paptuanuku and Ranginui are regarded as the primal parents of the pantheon who, through a prolonged period of intercourse, produced at least ten major deities as their children. In Maori culture Papatuanuku, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors.... |
| God name "Raki" | Maori | sky god of the Maori |
| God name "Rangi" | Maori / New Zealand | A god of the sky |
"Rangi and Papa" | Maori | Rangi and Papa are the primordial parents, the sky father and the earth mother, who lie locked together in a tight embrace. Maori |
| God name "Ranginui" | Polynesian / including Maori | sky god. The socalled sky father of the Polynesian culture whose consort is PAPATUANUKU, the earth mother. During a prolonged period of inseparable intercourse they became the prime parents of the Polynesian pantheon of gods. The children found life between the bodies of the parents too cramped and conspired to force them apart. Though one offspring, TUMATAUENGA, wanted to slay them, the advice of TANEMAHUTA, the Forest god, prevailed and RANGINUI and Papatuanuku were merely forced apart.... |
| God name "Rongo" | Maori | God of cultivated plants. Rongo, with his brothers Tu, Tane, Tawhirimatea, Tangaroa, and Haumia-tiketike, separated the primordial parents Rangi and Papa to allow daylight into the world. Maori |
| God name "Rongomai" | Polynesian / Maori | Whale god. He is the son of TANGAROA, the creator deity responsible for the oceans and the fish, and the father of KAHUKURA, the deity responsible for the appearance of the Rainbow. He is also regarded as the ancestor of several Maori clans. Various traditions are åśśociated with Rongomai. In some regions of New Zealand he is also regarded as a god of war and is thought to have discovered the magic arts during a visit to the underworld, including the power of kaiwhatu, a preventative charm against witchcraft. Rongomai is sometimes mistakenly identified with RONGOMATANE, or Rongo, though the latter is generally considered a distinct personality. As the god responsible for the well-being of whales Rongomai may take the form of a whale, a guise in which he once challenged MARU, a more widely recognized New Zealand war god. Separate mythology places him in the heavens in the form of a comet.... |
| Goddess name "Rongomatane" | Polynesian / including Maori | God of Agriculture. He is the father of cultivated food and the special gardener of the kumara or sweet potato which is a vital crop in Polynesia. In New Zealand the first sweet potatoes are offered to Rongomatane. In the traditions of the Hervey Islands, Rongo is one of the five sons of the moon god, Vatea, and the mother goddess, Papa.... |
| Goddess name "Ruamoko" | Polynesian / Maori | God of volcanoes and earthquakes. According to tradition, Ruamoko is the youngest son of RANGINUI and PAPATUANUXU and is possessed by a formidable temper. When his older siblings set about separating the prime parents from their eternal lovemaking in order to allow light into the space between sky and earth, he was enraged and his boisterous tantrum became revealed in the violence of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Ruamoko is of less importance than PELE, the chief volcano goddess of Polynesia, who is revered mainly in Hawaii.... |
| God name "Tane" | Maori / New Zealand | A god of the woodlands |
| God name "Tane aka Tane Mahuta" | Maori | the god of Forests and of birds. Maori |
| Goddess name "Tane(mahuta)" | Polynesian / including Maori | God of light. One of the children of the prime parents RANGINUI and PAPATUANUKU. Also god of trees, Forests and boat-builders, his consort is the goddess HINEAHU-ONE and he is the father of HINE-ATA-UIRA who descended to the underworld to become the goddess of death, HINE-NUI-TE-PO. In other traditions he is the consort of Hine-Nui-Te-Po, whom he joins each evening when he descends to the underworld. It was he who proposed that his parents should be pushed apart rather than slaughtered. In Maori culture Tanemahuta, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors. Also KANE (Hawaiian).... |
| Deities name "Tangaroa" | Polynesian / including Maori | Sea and creator god. The deity responsible for the oceans (moana) and the fish (ika) within them. In Hawaiian belief he was the primordial being who took the form of a bird and laid an egg on the surface of the primeval waters which, when it broke, formed the earth and sky. He then engendered the god of light, ATEA (cf. TANE). According to Tahitian legend, he fashioned the world inside a gigantic mussel shell. In a separate tradition Tangaroa went fishing and hauled the Tongan group of islands from the depths of the ocean on a hook and line. He is the progenitor of mankind (as distinct from TUMATAUENGA who has authority over mankind). His son Pili married SINA, the tropic bird and they produced five children from whom the rest of the Polynesian race was born. In Maori culture Tangaroa, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems which are depictions of ancestors.... |
| Deities name "Taumata-Atua" | Polynesian / including Maori | vegetation god. He presides over the fields and may be the god Rongomatane under an alternative name. In Maori culture Taumata-Atua, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors.... |
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