Haumia-tiketike- Polynesian GodDeity"God of Uncultivated Plants"
Also known as: Haumia
Description
When Tāwhirimātea's storms tore across the new-made world, Haumia-tiketike hid in his mother Papa's body—which is why his children, the bracken fern roots and wild tubers, must be dug from the earth by those who know where to look.
Mythology & Lore
Hiding in the Earth
When Tāne wrenched sky from earth and light flooded the space between Ranginui and Papatūānuku for the first time, not all their sons welcomed it. Tāwhirimātea, who had opposed the separation, hurled himself from the sky in fury. He sent his children, the winds and storms, tearing across the newborn world. Trees snapped. Seas heaved. Tangaroa's fish scattered into the deep.
Haumia-tiketike did not fight. He crawled into the body of his mother Papa and buried himself there, pressing down among her roots and soil. His brother Rongo hid with him. Of all the brothers, only Tūmatauenga stood upright against the storms. In Grey's Polynesian Mythology, the two who hid are named together, but Haumia's hiding goes deeper: his children, the bracken fern roots and wild tubers, grow so far beneath the surface that they must be dug out by hand.
Tū's Harvest
After Tūmatauenga beat back Tāwhirimātea's winds, he turned on the brothers who had left him to fight alone. One by one he found them and conquered them. He hauled Haumia's children from the soil, the aruhe, the fern rhizomes that Māori dried and pounded into starchy cakes. He pulled them up and ate them.
As Best recorded, Tū's victory gave humans the right to do the same. Every hand that digs a fern root from the earth repeats what Tū did first: reaching into Papa's body to drag out the god who would not fight.