In Māori mythology, Rongo or Rongo-mā-Tāne is a major god (atua) of cultivated plants, especially kumara, a vital crop. Other crops cultivated by Māori in traditional times included taro, yams (uwhi), cordyline (tī), and gourds (hue). Because of their tropical origin, most of these crops were difficult to grow except in the far north of the North Island, hence the importance of Rongo in New Zealand.
In Māori mythology the primal couple Rangi and Papa appear in a creation myth explaining the origin of the world and the Māori people. In some South Island dialects, Rangi is called Raki or Rakinui.
In Māori mythology, Tāne is the god of forests and of birds, and the son of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, the sky father and the earth mother, who used to lie in a tight embrace where their many children lived in the darkness between them.
Tangaroa is the great atua of the sea, lakes, rivers, and creatures that live within them, especially fish, in Māori mythology. As Tangaroa-whakamau-tai he exercises control over the tides. He is sometimes depicted as a whale.
Ta'aroa is the supreme creator god in the mythology of the Society Islands of French Polynesia. While the use of the ʻeta is appropriate given the pronunciation of his name, it is often omitted in practice, as is typically the case with Tahitian words.
Atea is a deity in several Polynesian cultures, including the Marquesas and Tuamotu Islands, and New Zealand.
Hine-nui-te-pō in Māori legends, is a goddess of night and she receives the spirits of humans when they die. She is the daughter of Tāne Mahuta / Tāne Tuturi and Hine-ahuone. It is believed among Māori that the colour red in the sky comes from her. Hine-nui-te-pō shepherds the wairua/souls into the first level of Rarohenga to ready them for the next stage of their journey. Before she was hine-nui-te-po her name was Hine-ti-tama. Her father Tane mahuta took her virginity; she then felt ashamed, hiding herself in internal darkness to hide from her father and became Hine-nui-te-po goddess of the night.
In Cook Islands mythology, Avatea was a lunar deity and the father of gods and men in Mangaian myth of origin. His eyes were thought to be the Sun and the Moon; he was also known as the god of light.
In the Māori mythology of the Ngāti Hau tribe, Hine-kau-ataata, is the daughter of Tiki (Man) and Mārikoriko (Twilight). When she is born, the first clouds appear in the sky.
In a Māori legend attributed by ethnographer John White to the Ngāti Hau tribe, Mārikoriko (Twilight) is the first woman, created by Ārohirohi from the heat of the sun and the echoing cliff. She married Tiki, the first man, and gave birth to Hine-kau-ataata.
Kaha'i is a handsome Polynesian demigod whose exploits were popular in many Polynesian mythologies.
In Polynesian mythology, Hawaiki is the original home of the Polynesians, before dispersal across Polynesia. It also features as the underworld in many Māori stories.
Moai or moʻai are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads, which comprise three-eighths the size of the whole statue and they have no legs. The moai are chiefly the living faces of deified ancestors. The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island in 1722, but all of them had fallen by the latter part of the 19th century. The moai were toppled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, possibly as a result of European contact or internecine tribal wars.
The hei-tiki is an ornamental pendant of the Māori of New Zealand. Hei-tiki are usually made of pounamu (greenstone), and are considered a taonga (treasure) by Māori. They are commonly called tiki by New Zealanders, a term that originally refers to large human figures carved in wood and to the small wooden carvings used to mark sacred places.
Takatāpui is a Māori language term that is used in a similar way to LGBT. When speaking Māori, LGBT people of any culture are referred to as takatāpui. In English, a takatāpui person is a Māori individual who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern fantastic tales relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pre-European Māori, often involving gods and demigods. Māori tradition concerns more folkloric legends often involving historical or semi-historical forebears. Both categories merge in whakapapa to explain the overall origin of the Māori and their connections to the world which they lived in.
Jewellery making in the Pacific started later than in other areas, due to relatively recent human settlement. Early Polynesian jewellery, which was made of bone, wood and other natural materials, has not survived. The precise start of island jewellery-making is difficult to pinpoint, due to many of the island nations' founders migrating there from other areas, such as Tahiti.
In Hawaiian religion, Kū is one of the four great gods. The other three are Kanaloa, Kāne, and Lono. Some feathered god images or akua hulu manu are considered to represent Kū. Kū is worshiped under many names, including Kū-ka-ili-moku, the "Snatcher of Land". Rituals for Kūkaʻilimoku included human sacrifice, which was not part of the worship of other gods.
The Manaia is a mythological creature in Māori culture, and is a common motif in Māori carving and jewellery.
Ui-te-Rangiora or Hui Te Rangiora is a legendary Polynesian navigator from Rarotonga who is claimed to have sailed to the Southern Ocean and sometimes to have discovered Antarctica.
