Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Goddess name "Pele" | Polynesian / Hawaii | Volcano goddess. According to tradition she arrived in Hawaii in a canoe, having sailed from Tahiti. She may derive locally from the more familiar Polynesian moon goddess, HINA, since one of her alternative names is Hina-Ai-Malama (Hina who devours the moon).... |
Deities name "Pu Ma" | Polynesian | Generic name for deities. The title given to any god of high rank.... |
God name "Pusi" | Polynesian / Tikopia | Fish god. The apotheosis of the reef eel who probably accompanied the Tongan ancestors who migrated to Tikopia.... |
Deities name "Quat" | Polynesian / Banks Islands | Creator god. As with many Polynesian deities, the god is depicted as being very inactive, sitting around all day doing nothing.... |
Goddess name "Raka (trouble) (2)" | Polynesian / Hervey Islands | God of winds. The fifth child of VARI-MA-TE-TAKERE, the primordial mother. His home is Moana-Irakau (deep ocean). He received as a gift from his mother a great basket containing the winds, which became his children, each allotted a hole in the edge of the horizon through which to blow. The mother goddess also gave him knowledge of many useful things which he påśśes on to mankind.... |
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 "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 "Salevao" | Polynesian | Primordial god of rocks. He is the brother of SAVEA SI'ULEO, god of the dead, and the consort of PAPATUANUKA, the earth mother, who became pregnant and gave birth to Moa in the center of the earth. (Moa may have been the ancestor of mankind, roughly equating to Adam.)... |
God name "Savea Si'uleo" | Polynesian | God of the dead. The brother of SALEVAO, god of rocks.... |
Goddess name "Sina" | Polynesian / Samoan | moon goddess. See also HINA.... |
God name "Tana'ao" | Polynesian / Marquesas Islands | weather and sea god. A local variation on the Polynesian god TANGAROA, known as a god of winds and a tutelary deity of fishermen.... |
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).... |
God name "Tane[mahuta]" | Polynesian | A god of light, fertility & the sky |
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.... |
God name "Tango" | Polynesian / Hervey Islamds / The third child of the primordial mother VARI - MA - TETAKERE, he was plucked from her right side / lived in Enua - Kura, the land of the red parrot feather immediately below the home of TINIRAU in the world coconut | God. Ta'ngwanla'na (greatest one in the sea)... |
Goddess name "Taranga" | Polynesian | Polynesian fertility goddess. |