Ao- Polynesian ConceptConcept"The World of Light"

The Separation

Before Tāne braced his shoulders against his father Ranginui, there was no light. Earth and Sky lay pressed together, and their children crouched between them in Te Pō, the long darkness. Tāne set his feet against Papatūānuku and pushed upward. Rangi's body rose. Light flooded the space between heaven and earth for the first time. Mist lifted from Papatūānuku's skin, and trees uncurled toward the new sky. This was Te Ao Mārama.

Between Darkness and Light

A child is born ki te ao, "into the world." In Māori tradition, the womb is Pō: dark, formless, the same state that preceded the separation. Birth reenacts Tāne's act. The infant passes from darkness into light, takes its first breath in Ao, and joins the living. Each morning does the same. Sleep belongs to Pō. Waking belongs to Ao. The sleeper crosses back into darkness each night and returns at dawn.

Death reverses the crossing. The dead travel to Pō, descending from the world of light into Te Reinga and beyond. Best records in Maori Religion and Mythology that the spirits of the dead slide down roots at the tip of Te Rerenga Wairua, leaving Ao behind them. The living and the dead occupy the same cosmos, separated by the boundary Tāne created when he pushed his parents apart.

Cloud and Sky

The word ao means both "light" and "cloud" in Māori. Clouds move through the space Tāne opened, formations of light and shadow drifting between earth and the sky father. Polynesian navigators read cloud patterns to find land: a greenish tint on the underside of a cloud bank signaled a lagoon below, and dark stationary clouds over open ocean meant an island. Te Rangi Hiroa describes these techniques in The Coming of the Maori. Clouds belonged to Ao's domain: visible, knowable, signs the living could read.