Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
God name "Turi a faumea" | Polynesian | A god of fishing & reptiles |
God name "Tane[mahuta]" | Polynesian | A god of light, fertility & the sky |
Goddess name "Atanea" | Polynesian | A goddess of the dawn in Polynesian mythology. She created the seas after having a miscarriage and filling the oceans with her amniotic fluid. |
God name "Tifenua (lord of the land)" | Polynesian / Tikopia | Chthonic fertility god. He is linked with the sea god FAIVARONGO and with the sky god ATUA I KAFIKA. His father is Pusiuraura, a powerful deity personified by the reef eel, and his mother is one of the Sa-Nguti-Te-Moana. Also Pu-I-Te-Moana.... |
Goddess name "Hine-Ahu-One (maiden formed of the earth)" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic goddess. Engendered by the god TANE when he needed a consort because, with the exception of the primordial earth mother PAPATUANUKU, all the existing gods of creation were male. Tane created her out of the red earth and breathed life into her. She became the mother of HINE-ATA-UIRA.... |
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.... |
Goddess name "Hine-Nui-Te-Po (great woman of the night)" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic underworld goddess. Originally she was HINE-ATAUIRA, the daughter of TANE and HINE-AHUONE, but she descended to rule over the underworld. She is depicted in human form but with eyes of jade, hair of seaweed and teeth like those of a predatory fish.... |
God name "Atua Fafine" | Polynesian / Tikopia | Creator being. One of a pair with ATUA I RAROPUKA when the land of Tikopia was pulled up from the bottom of the ocean. They may have been there from the outset, or arrived on the back of a turtle from foreign parts. They engendered five sons, all gods.... |
God name "Atua I Raropuka" | Polynesian / Tikopia | Creator being. One of a pair with Atua Fafine when the land of Tikopia was pulled up from the bottom of the ocean. They may have been there from the outset, or arrived on the back of a turtle from foreign parts. They engendered five sons, all gods.... |
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.... |
God name "Ihoiho" | Polynesian / Society Islands | Creator god. Before Ihoiho there was nothing. He created the primeval waters on which floated TINO TAATA, the creator of mankind.... |
Deities name "Tiki" | Polynesian / including Maori | Creator god. One of the children of RANGINUI and PAPATUANUKU who created mankind. In some Polynesian traditions he is represented as the first man, akin to Adam. The word is also incorporated in tikiwananga or god stick, which describes the wooden or stone images of deities that are usually minimally worked and stand about 19.5 inches tall. Only thirty or so examples of these are known, most having been destroyed by Christian missions. The celebrated large Maori totems are depictions of ancestors who appear as human / bird or reptile hybrids. Also Ki'i (Hawaiian).... |
God name "Tino Taata" | Polynesian / Society Islands | Creator god. Probably regarded as the tutelary deity who engendered mankind and equating therefore to the more widely recognized Polynesian god TANGAROA.... |
Goddess name "Touia Fatuna (iron stone)" | Polynesian / Tonga | earth goddess. The daughter of Kele (slime) and Limu (seaweed), she is the apotheosis of rock deep in the earth and is periodically in labor, at which time she rumbles and shakes and produces children.... |
Goddess name "Mahuikez" | Polynesian | Fire god. Identified with earthquakes and possibly paralleling TOUIA FATUNA (iron stone goddess) in Tongan belief.... |
God name "Apu-Ko-Hai" | Polynesian | Fish god of the Kanei who inhabit the Polynesian island of Mangaia. |
God name "Pusi" | Polynesian / Tikopia | Fish god. The apotheosis of the reef eel who probably accompanied the Tongan ancestors who migrated to Tikopia.... |
God name "Tinirau (innumerable)" | Polynesian / Hervey Islands | Fish god. The second offspring of the great mother VARI-MA-TETAKERE and the younger sibling of AVATEA. He is said to live in the coconut of the world on a sacred isle called Motu-Tapu immediately below the home of Avatea and to own ponds full of all kinds of fish. He is depicted as half man (right side) and half fish (left side) in the form of a sprat.... |