The Maori:Creation storyThe Maori Creation Story: The separation of Heaven and Earth 

           By: Anna Ching January 13 2011.           Period 1 Culture and Geography 

 

All humans are descended from one pair of ancestors, Rangi and Papi,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) Tangora,the father of fish and reptiles.

 

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

 

(5) Haumia-tikitiki,the father of food 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 the darkness for a extremely long time,able only to wonder what light and vision might be like. 

 

After a battle between six sons,Tu-matauenga ate 4 of his brothers as food,spraring Tawhiri-ma-tea, the father of winds and storms.

 

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