PowerPoint Presentation

Contemporary Traditonal Maori Culture, Part 2
The Maori Creation Story: The Seperation of Heaven And Earth
Jesus Guzman, 1-18-12, Period:5, Culture And Geography

(According to the 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 forests an 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) Haumaia-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 the 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, Tu-mataunga 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.