Polynesian Mythology: Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealanders (Forgotten Books) - Tapa blanda

Polynesian mythology is the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (meaning "many islands" in Greek) a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian triangle together with the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian that was spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area in the early AD.

Prior to the 10th century AD, Polynesian people fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and to other groups such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their descendants eventualy discovered the islands of New Zealand by 1000 AD, the islands of Hawai'i somewhat earlier and Rapa Nui, which, for some unknown reason, was settled even before New Zealand and Hawai'i. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to permit communication between some other language speakers. There are also substantial cultural similarities between the various groups, especially in terms of social organization, childrearing, as well as horticulture, building and textile technologies; their mythologies in particular demonstrate local reworkings of commonly shared tales.

Thus, in some island groups, Tangaroa is of great importance as the god of the sea and of fishing. There is often a story of the marriage between Sky and Earth; the New Zealand version, Rangi and Papa, is a union that gives birth to the world and all things in it. There are stories of islands pulled up from the bottom of the sea by a magic fishhook, or thrown down as rocks from heaven. There are stories of voyages, migrations, seductions and battles, as one might expect. Stories about a trickster, Maui, are widely known, as are those about a beautiful goddess/ancestress Hina or Sina who shake