Contemporary Traditional Maori Culture, Part 2

"The Maori Creation Story:The Separation of Heaven and

Earth"

By Brandon Oroxon, 1/18/12 period1

Culture and Geography

All humans have descended from one pair of ancestors, Rangi and Papa,

who are also called Heaven and Earth.

In those days, Heaven and Earth clung closely together, and all was darkness.

Rangi and Papa had six sons:1) Tane-mahuta, the father of the forests and

their inhabitants.

2)Tawhiri-ma-tea, the father of winds and storms

3) Tangaroa, the father of fish and reptiles.

4) Tu-matauenga, the father of fierce human beings

5)Haumai-tikitiki the father of food that grows without culvation.

8) and Rongo-ma-tane, the father of cultivated food

In the beginning these six sons and all other beings lived in darkness for an extremely long time, able only to wonder what light and vision might be like.

After a battle between the six sons, Tumatauenga ate four of his brothers as food, spraying Tawhirimatea,

the father of winds and storms

This is why today people are fierce and have war, why people eat plants and animals, and why there

are storms