Contemporary Maori Culture, Part 2"The Maori Creation Story of Heaven

and Earth"

By: Cristina Guzman, January 29,2012Per:6 Culture and Geograpgy

(According to Maori tradition) All humans are 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

forest and their inhabitants.

(2) Tawhiri-ma-tea the father of winds and

storms.

(3) Tangoroa,

the father of fish and reptiles.

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

beings.

(5) Haumia-tikitiki, the father of food a that

grows without cultivation.

 (8) and Rongo-ma-tane, the father of

cultivated food.

In the beginning these six sons and all other beings lived in darkness for and extremely long time able only to woder

what light and vision might be like.

After a battle between the six sons, Tu-matauenga ate 4 of his brothers as  food,

sparing Tawhiri-ma-tea, 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.