Best. — Maori Forest Lore. 187 



The above names are said to represent certain beings who 

 existed before man was, and before the sky and earth were 

 formed. Some Native mythologists assert that there were ten 

 beings named Te Pu (Te Pu the First to Te Pu the Tenth), 

 ten named Te More, and so on down to Rangi and Papa, though 

 it is not clear as to whether the ten were contemporaries or 

 otherwise. Others state that Te Pu and Te More were the 

 primal pair, male and female, who begat Te Weu and Te Aka, 

 male and female, and so on down to Rangi and Papa. Yet 

 another version is that each of these beings was of a bisexual 

 nature, and contained within themselves the powers of repro- 

 duction. They are not said to have been anthropomorphic, or 

 possessed of any faculties akin to those of the genus homo. 

 Rangi, the Sky Parent, and Papa, the Earth Mother, are the 

 first beings to whom are allotted powers of speech, thought, 

 and feeling in Maori myth. 



It will be seen that many of the names in the above genea- 

 logical allegory pertain to trees and their growth, taking the 

 present-day meaning of the words, which takes the mind back 

 to the cosmogonal or universe tree of Oriental and Aryan myth- 

 ologies. An explanation of these names given to me by a very 

 old Native agrees with the above bracketed words, save in the 

 case of the first name. He said, " Te Pu is the upper part ; 

 Te More is the root ; Te Weu represents the rootlets ; Te Aka 

 means the aka ; Te Rea stands for growth, and Te Wao-nui 

 for size attained ; Te Kune means form attained ; Te Whe 

 stands for wJieke, the creaking sound of trees heard when wind 

 blows in the forest ; Te Kore implies nothingness, non-existence ; 

 Te Po is darkness. From Te Po came Rangi ; his sister was 

 Papa : these iwo produced Tane, Tangotango, and Wai-nui. 

 From these sprang all things in the world — people, and plants, 

 trees, stones, fish, animals, birds, reptiles, rats, insects, moths, 

 spiders, mosquitoes, and all other things. From Tane sprang 

 men, trees, and birds. His descendant was Tangaroa-i-te- 

 rupetu, who begat Maui, who begat Te Papatiti-raumaewa, 

 who begat Tiwakawaka, who came to this land (New Zealand) 

 from Mataora in times long past away." 



The word aka, above, is used to denote long, thin roots, and 

 is also a generic term for climbing-plants. Te Po is a name 

 applied to the underworld, the place to which go the spirits 

 of the dead from this world ; but it also is applied to the aeons 

 of time before this world came into being — that is, before Rangi 

 and Papa were. For, prior to the forcing-apart of Sky and Earth 

 by their son Tane, light was unknown : darkness obtained 

 everywhere. Beings who existed before the separation are said 

 to have belonged to the Po. Those who came after it are said 

 to have been of the ao mamma, the world of light. 



