Rangi- Polynesian PrimordialPrimordial"Sky Father"

The Primordial Embrace

In the beginning there was Te Kore, the void, and from the void emerged Te Pō, the long darkness. Within Te Pō, Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatūānuku the Earth Mother found each other and clung together in an embrace without end. They pressed so closely that nothing could pass between them. No light. No air. No space for anything to exist. Rangi lay upon Papa, and Papa held Rangi, and their love filled the entire universe because the entire universe was nothing more than the space between their bodies. For ages beyond counting they lay this way, through the long nights of Te Pō.

Within that embrace, children were conceived and born into darkness. They gained strength but could not move. They became aware but could not see. For Rangi, the embrace was everything. His wife was the only reality, the warmth beneath him the only sensation. He did not know his children were suffering in the cramped darkness. He did not understand that his love had become a prison.

The Separation

The children debated in the darkness. Tūmatauenga, fierce and direct, wanted to kill both parents. Tāne argued for separation: push them apart so that Rangi might become the sky above and Papa the earth below, with light and air between them. Tāwhirimātea alone begged his brothers to leave their parents in peace. He loved the embrace and could not bear to see it broken. The majority chose separation.

One by one the brothers tried. Rongo strained against his father and could not move him. Tangaroa heaved with all his strength and failed. Then Tāne, god of the forest, changed his approach. He lay on his mother's body, braced his feet against his father, and pushed upward with the strength of his legs, the leverage of trees that grow from earth toward sky. Rangi's grip on Papa began to fail. Slowly, the embrace that had lasted since the beginning of time was broken from within.

Rangi screamed. It was the first great sound in the world. He was lifted higher and higher, his fingers grasping at Papa's body as it receded below him, the warmth of her fading as cold and emptiness rushed into the widening gap. Light flooded the space between them. For the first time, the children could see their mother stretching green and broad beneath their feet, and their father rising into the dark above, his hands still reaching down. Tāne pushed him higher still, propping the sky with the great trees of the forest. Te Ao Mārama, the World of Light, was born. Rangi was cast into eternal exile above it.

Rain and Storm

Rangi wept. His tears fell upon Papa's body below, and they have never stopped. The rain that falls from the sky is Ranginui's grief: every shower a renewal of mourning, every storm a fresh eruption of the sorrow that began when the world began. The mist that rises from the earth at dawn is Papa's answer. She reaches toward the husband she can feel but no longer hold.

One son refused to let the separation stand. Tāwhirimātea, who had begged his brothers to leave their parents in peace, followed his father into the sky and launched war on those below. He sent hurricanes against Tāne's forests and tempests against Tangaroa's sea. Only Tūmatauenga stood firm. His brothers fled or hid, but the war god planted his feet and fought the storm.

Clothed in Stars

After the separation, Rangi's body stretched vast and dark and naked above the earth. Tāne, the son who had torn him from Papa, adorned his father with the celestial bodies. He placed the sun, Tama-nui-te-rā, to cross the sky by day. He set the moon, Marama, to light the night. He scattered stars across Rangi's body. The Milky Way spread across his chest like a river of light, and the constellations took their places as guides for the navigators who would one day cross the Pacific.

The rising of the Matariki cluster in midwinter marks the beginning of the Māori new year. When those stars appear above the horizon, communities gather to mourn the dead and celebrate new life.

Wākea and the First Taro

In Hawaiian tradition, the sky father is Wākea. With Papa he produced the Hawaiian islands and the Hawaiian people. The Kumulipo, their great creation chant, builds from darkness through two thousand lines: from coral and fern to god and chief, from the first stirring in the dark to the chiefs who ruled when Europeans arrived. At the origin stands Wākea.

Wākea's union with Hoʻo-hōkūkalani produced a stillborn child named Hāloa-naka. They buried the small body, and from its grave grew the first kalo plant, the taro that would become the staple food of the Hawaiian people. A second child, also named Hāloa, survived and became the ancestor of all Hawaiians. The sky father's firstborn fed them. His second son made them.