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Deities of the Maori Pantheon

In Maori Religion and Mythology, Best includes an introductory chapter about the Maori pantheon of gods and goddesses, titled “The Gods of the Maori.” As may be familiar to us from the cosmologies of other cultures like ancient Greece, this pantheon is conceptualized within the framework of a family lineage. Specific details of how each of these deities related to one another ancestrally can vary from source to source, based on the sometimes contradictory information relayed by different myths, texts, or priests. From Best’s perspective, these deities fit within a hierarchical structure and so can be conceptualized into distinct classes, almost akin to the zoological families and orders of animals. As we discuss the specific deified personalities, we should keep in mind Best’s view that the Maori did not actually worship these deities in the modern sense of the word. Rather, the characters should be seen to represent concepts, stages, and aspects of the processes of creation that have come to be personified so as to metaphorically illustrate these processes within mythic storylines.

Io

If we accept Best’s views on these deities, the Maori pantheon begins with a god named Io, who constituted the Supreme Being and so stood in a class by himself. Best tells us that the cult of Io was known only to the higher classes of Maori priests, and so knowledge of him constituted esoteric knowledge that a beginning initiate would only eventually come to attain. From a scientific perspective, the innermost aspects of cosmology touch on concepts that, placed in the wrong hands, could prove destructive. Consequently, the intentions of the initiate became a key factor in admission to the cult. Best tells us that “the practice of this cult and that of . . . black magic, by the same person was not permissible in some districts.”¹ Knowledge that fell into this restricted category was referred to by the word tapu, a term that is a likely correlate to the more generally familiar word taboo. Tregear defines the word tapu to mean “under restriction” or “prohibited.”²

Tregear defines Io as “God, the Supreme Being.”³ The consensus Maori view is that Io was responsible for begetting the major deities of the Maori pantheon. As was true for deities in the ancient traditions of Egypt, China, India, and elsewhere, a list of honorific titles was assigned to Io, each of which emphasized aspects of the cosmological roles he played. Once again, depending on the source of the list, the specific titles given, the order in which they were presented, and the Maori terms used to characterize them all could vary.

Best considers the Maori tradition of Io to be an exceedingly ancient one and dismisses suggestions that similarities to later religions could be the result of more modern Christian influences on the Maori. In support of that view, he cites the archaic forms of language used in the various Maori texts from which the information was drawn and points to the lack of preservation in the Maori texts of recognizable phraseology from the Old Testament, beyond that of the Book of Genesis.

Best also unhesitatingly compares various attributes assigned to Io to those of deities from other ancient traditions. For example, he relates the Maori notion that Io was “the beginning of the gods” to “the old Egyptian concept of the Supreme Being.”⁴ Likewise, one set of titles of Io, given as “Io of the hidden face” or “Io at the hidden place,” could seem to associate Io with the hidden gods Amma and Amen of the Dogon and of ancient Egypt. Best states that in the Maori view, Io could not be seen, and he cites the “hidden” titles as evidence to support that view. He suggests that only Io’s radiance or glow could reportedly be seen by humans. To underscore the idea, Best quotes a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher named Philo, who wrote, “God is invisible, for how can eyes that are too weak to gaze upon the sun be strong enough to gaze upon its maker.”⁵

Significantly, Best mentions sources who compare the Maori concept of Io to the ancient god “Iahoue or Iahveh.” One source states that, in other ancient cultures, these names “became contracted into Iahou or Io.”⁶ In defense of that view, Best writes, “The Maori concept of Io bears a strong resemblance to that of Jahweh among the Semites with regard to the lack of any definite ideas of the Supreme Being. No images of that being were made, and the great is surrounded by mystery, vagueness, and intense tapu.”⁷

In summary, the Maori concept of Io was that of a Supreme Being, a creator who was himself uncreated, had no parents, was never born and never dies, and had no offspring (notwithstanding Maori myths that credit him with having begotten other gods). Best categorically dismisses suggestions that Io might have been a human ancestor who later came to be deified. Despite all of this, the Maori made no offerings to Io and lacked most of the aspects of worship toward Io that we would associate with the deity of a modern religion.

Rangi and Papa

Because of differences that exist in the genealogical tables of deities given by various Maori sources, a definitive mythic lineage from Io, the Supreme Being, to the Sky Parents Rangi and Papa cannot be precisely stated. In other creation traditions we have studied, the processes of creation, once initiated, reach a point of culmination with the separation of earth and sky, concepts that were often anthropomorphized in the form of primal parents. For the Maori, Rangi (who is termed “the greatest father of all men”) represented the concept of the heavens or sky, while his female counterpart or consort Papa was considered the Great Mother and symbolized the earth. This symbolism is the reverse of what we encounter in the earliest cosmological traditions of cultures like ancient China. A certain amount of gender confusion relating to these symbolic assignments is apparent in the traditional meanings of related Maori words. For example, as in the familiar modern usage, papa was an affectionate Maori term for “father” and so suggests a preexisting symbolic aspect for the term that would be masculine, not feminine. Likewise, a character from Maori mythology named Rangiuru, whose name is formulated on a masculine term, was described as a mother and a wife.

Tane

Best refers to the second class of Maori deities as departmental gods. He defines these as gods who take anthropomorphic form and who are deemed to have presided over certain arts, industries, and natural productions. Because of the way that the esoteric tradition of the Maori concealed its inner secrets, these deified constructs represented the highest echelon of gods known to the ordinary Maori people. In Best’s estimation, Tane was “assuredly the most important being” of the class of departmental gods.⁸ Best feels that this fact was clearly demonstrated by the importance of the activities Tane performed within the mythos of the tradition. Best describes him as “the most conspicuous of the offspring of the primal parents.” In Maori mythology, it is Tane who ascended to the domain of the Supreme Being Io in order to acquire three baskets or receptacles of esoteric knowledge, which were considered to be of the greatest value to humanity. Tane is the god who reportedly succeeded in turning back the powers of darkness. From this perspective, Best considers Tane to represent the concept of light. Tane was also intimately associated with the concept of agriculture in that he was considered the author of all vegetation.⁹

Tane was understood to have been the originator of birds, a class of creatures that play important symbolic roles in the cosmology and history of many ancient cultures. These notably include birds of prey, such as the hawk, which hold symbolic significance from the era of Gobekli Tepe onward. From a linguistic perspective, all of the mythical offspring of Tane are associated with bird names. Moreover, he was credited with having created the first woman and so played a key ancestral role in relation to humanity.

From yet another perspective of Maori mythology, Tane held importance as a member of the Polynesian trinity of Tane, Tu, and Rongo. This outlook potentially aligns him cosmologically with the symbolism of a triad of astronomic bodies (the Sirius stars, the belt stars of Orion, and Barnard’s Loop) that are significant in the creation traditions of other cultures we have studied. As part of this widely known trinity, it makes sense that each of the deities that comprise it would be comparably well known throughout Polynesia.

Tu

Among the most knowledgeable of the Maori priests, Tu plays the role of a destroyer, comparable to the symbolism of the god Shiva in the Hindu tradition. This mythical role reinforces our presumption of an association between Tu and Barnard’s Loop, the spiraling astronomic structure that, for the Dogon, serves as a kind of macro-cosmic counterpart to the microcosmic egg-of-the-world and whose rotation may evoke notions of cyclical destruction. The name Tu forms the phonetic root of a Maori term tumau, which means “fixed” or “constant.”¹⁰ This word would seem to be a clear correlate to an important cosmological term of the Dogon (toymu) and the ancient Egyptian (temau) that relates to the formation of the egg-of-the-world and implies the notion of completeness. Taken in the context of the Hebrew word shiva, which means “seven,” symbolic correlations to the god Shiva uphold the numerology of the seven-chambered structure (discussed in more detail in Sacred Symbols of the Dogon, beginning on page 35). Likewise, Tu carries symbolism in Polynesian mythology that links him to concepts of death, war, and the underworld. Likewise, there are perspectives from which Tu can relate to the idea of the setting sun, a notion that in ancient Egyptian culture was also closely associated with death and the Underworld, which was also known as the Tuat. Similar setting-sun symbolism was assigned to the Egyptian god Tem or Tum, whose name also conjures the concept of temau. Although Tu is consistently cast as a male god in most regions of Polynesia, Best tells us that some groups considered Tu to be a goddess. This gender confusion again seems reflective of reversals in symbolism that seem to have emerged cross-regionally within the cosmology sometime after 3200 BCE.

Rongo

Rongo is the third member of the trinity of Maori deities that is associated with Tane and Tu. Tregear suggests that, although Rongo was paid reverence universally throughout Polynesia, his attributes differ widely in different Polynesian locales. According to Best, Rongo’s symbolic aspects in Maori mythology relate to agriculture and to peacefulness, and emphasize hospitality, generosity, and courtesy. As such, concepts personified by Rongo certainly reflect aspects of ancient civilizing instruction as they are understood by the Dogon and other cultures. However, Best tells us that agricultural operations were classed among the secretive processes of the Maori culture, and so he also associates Rongo with the esoteric instruction that initiates to the Maori tradition received.¹¹ Rongo was considered the protector of crops in the Maori culture, and appeals were made to him to guarantee that an agricultural crop would be abundant. Best sees evidence that Rongo was originally a lord of abundance who was honored alongside Tane. However, the earliest references illustrate that he personified a process that would have preceded the harvesting of grown crops. Perhaps the best Egyptian conceptual correlate to Rongo would be a goddess of the harvest named Rennutt, whose name rests on the phonetic root rennu, which means “to harvest” and implies “joy, rejoicing, and gladness.”¹²

Tangaroa

Tangaroa is described by Best as “an important departmental being.”¹³ Although he is traditionally seen as a personified incarnation of the ocean, there are suggestions that his symbolism may relate to an important Dogon cosmological drawing called the nummo fish. Support for that view is upheld by a Maori outlook that views Tangaroa as the “personified form of fish.”¹⁴ The Dogon image is a kind of stick-figure outline that bears a resemblance to a catfish. Based on definitions given by the Dogon priests, the component attributes of the fish, which include a central heart, two collarbones, two fins, a squared head, and four whiskers, seem to symbolically depict the events that pertain to the perception of matter in its wavelike state, which initiate the formation of matter.

As we understand the Dogon drawing conceptually, an act of perception (centered at the heart of the nummo fish) causes the “perfect order” of the waves (the scales of the lower body) to be disrupted and drawn upward (a concept conveyed by the collarbones, or clavicles, of the fish), then afterward to be extended and effectively reassembled into what we see as particles of matter. (The head of the nummo fish takes the pyramidal shape of a squared hemisphere, symbolizing the concept of mass.) In accordance with that scenario, the Maori word tanga means “to be assembled or congregated,”¹⁵ while the Maori word roa means “length” or “extension.”¹⁶ On one level of interpretation, the differentiation of matter into particles is what is referred to by the idea of multiplicity emerging from unity. Consistent with these outlooks, in Maori cosmology fish are understood to have originated with the son of Tangaroa, whose two-word name implies the concepts of numbers and multitude.¹⁷ A Maori saying that pertains to Tangaroa, given as He wai Tangaroa i haere ai ki uta, translates as, “By means of water, Tangaroa was enabled to go inland.”

Dogon nummo fish drawing (from Griaule and Dieterlen, The Pale Fox, 185)

Best cites the existence of a “singular myth” of the Maori concerning Tangaroa, a god more formally named Rua-te-pupuke, whose name means “two” or “repetition,” which implies immediacy. He is understood to be one of a broader class of gods called Rua, who are taken to be “the personified forms of knowledge and its acquisition”¹⁸ and so are effective correlates to the concept of an act of perception. Variant versions of the myth are repeated, but the upshot is that, like particles from waves of mass, Tangaroa is drawn upward out of the ocean and placed on the roof of a house. An event of destruction or tragedy follows, after which Rua banishes Tangaroa to the ocean. Best makes the comment that “this peculiar myth probably contains some hidden meaning unknown to us.”¹⁹ In some Polynesian localities such as Tahiti, Tangaroa was celebrated as the original creator god who formed the islands of the Pacific and caused them to rise from the deep. In other situations, there were associations between Tangaroa and the moon, which might possibly arise from the moon’s role in inducing ocean tides.

Tawhiri-Matea

Best defines Tawhiri-Matea as the deity who was in charge of the winds. In the language of our cosmology, wind is a symbolic term for the concept of vibration. From a scientific perspective, any given vibration is defined by the frequency of its wavelength. Appropriate to those definitions, Tregear defines the Maori word tawhiri as meaning “to wave to” or “to beckon.” In addition to this personification of wind as a generic concept, each wind (north, south, east, and west) also had its personified form. Best notes that there were also many names presented in Maori mythology for what are referred to as wind children.²⁰ In the framework of the cosmological analogy, these might well relate to the multiple vibrational frequencies of particles of matter.

Maori myths relate that when the offspring of Rangi and Papa made the decision to separate their parents, earth and sky, Tawhiri-Matea was the only one who objected to the choice. Scientifically speaking, the growth of particles of matter is accompanied by the force of gravity, whose pull would have tended to resist the separation of massed bodies as the concept of space initially emerged. Appropriate to that outlook, the Maori myth then tells us that Rongo, Tangaroa, and Tu attempted to force the Sky Parent upward but failed in that attempt. Ultimately, it was Tane who succeeded in accomplishing the separation. Tane, who on one level symbolizes the male energy associated with mass, also bears a relationship to the scientific concept of an orbit, the cosmological effect that sustains a separation of distance between two astronomic bodies. During these events, Tangaroa is said to have taken refuge in the waters of the ocean, and a few of his lizard-like children, known as the repulsive ones, took refuge on land. The use of the term repulsive in the context of this myth serves to confirm an interpretation that could relate to the force of gravity.

Haumia

Some versions of the tribal myths of the Maori include a character named Haumia as one of the offspring of the primal parents, Rangi and Papa. Best is of the opinion that Haumia represents the aruhe, edible roots of a fern plant that was important to the food supply of the Maori. The significant mythical act that Haumia is credited with is having taken root in the Earth following the separation of the Earth and Sky Parents. In Dogon cosmology, one of the conceptual metaphors that is given for the creation of matter is framed in relation to the growth of a plant from a seed. It is possible that this poorly understood aspect of Maori cosmology related to a similar metaphor. In the ancient Chinese cosmological tradition, the term hao referred to a structure comparable to the Dogon egg-of-the-world. We see this as a correlate to the Calabi-Yau space of string theory. From this perspective, the structure would specifically be an end product of processes that differentiate mass (earth) and space (sky).

Whiro

It is Best’s belief that the Maori departmental god Whiro represented the concepts of darkness and evil. Some researchers of Maori mythology compare Whiro’s symbolic association with an evil spirit to scriptural accounts of Lucifer.²¹

From other mythological perspectives, Whiro was considered to be the older brother of Tane, since the cosmological condition of darkness is traditionally understood to have preceded the condition of light. Tregear’s dictionary entry for the god’s name informs us that, in Maori myth, Whiro was banished as a consequence of an improper intimacy he formed with the wife of one of his nephews.

From a cosmological perspective, duality is seen as a principle of creation, and yet the processes of the creation of matter are each described as having been initiated by a single act, such as an act of perception or the rupturing of a cosmogonic egg. One way of representing this type of exception to the rule of duality is by comparing it to a sexual act that involves only one person or that is in some way considered to be improper. For example, in the Dogon and Egyptian traditions, the processes of creation can be described as having begun with a masturbatory or incestuous act.

By comparison, Dogon cosmology also includes an episode of impropriety, but it is expressed in relation to a storyline in which one of the eight mythical Dogon ancestors was said to have descended to Earth out of his proper sequence. According to the Dogon myth, the first six ancestors made their appearances according to their numerology, but for reasons that are not fully explained, the eighth came down before the seventh. This breach of protocol so angered the seventh ancestor that he killed the eighth ancestor. (The French anthropologist Marcel Griaule, who exhaustively documented the Dogon creation tradition, questioned his Dogon informant, the priest Ogotemmeli, on this point, and it was admitted that the reference is meant to be symbolic, not historic, and so no Dogon ancestor was actually killed.) A deeper exploration of the Dogon symbolism shows that it relates to what the Dogon consider to be an inherent flaw in our material universe, one that pertains to the structure of the spiraling egg-of-the-world on which all larger structures of matter are based. An alternate meaning for the Maori word whiro suggests that this episode of Maori mythology might well relate to a similar cosmological concept, since in common usage, whiro can mean “to spin,” “to twist,” or “to plait.”

Ru (or Ruaumoko)

The youngest of seventy Maori offspring of Rongo and Papa was Ru (sometimes called Ruaumoko). Tregear lists the full name of Ru as Ru-wai-moko-roa. The Maori word ru means “to shake,”²²wai means “water,”²³ the word moko refers to “tattoo marks on the face or body,”²⁴ and the word roa implies the concept of “length” or “extension.”²⁵ The cosmological implication is that of matter in its wavelike state having been extended to create a kind of hidden face. Comparable symbolism is associated with the Dogon practice of creating carved wooden masks. Ruaumoko is understood to have been so young at the time when the pivotal events of creation occurred that he was still a suckling infant of the Earth Mother and so never emerged into the upper world that constitutes our material reality.²⁶ So it is understandable that his symbolism relates to the subterranean world and concepts of darkness, and that he was understood to act as a protector of the spirits of the dead, whose traditional cosmological domain is the underworld.