Maori Gods
In Māori mythology, long before the sea and land agreed on continents, Maui fished up the North Island. Before the time of Christ the people of Maui visited the northern lands called Te Tai Tokerau. Around 950 AD the leader Kupe landed with some of his people from the distant land of Hawaiki. In 1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed around New Zealand but the land did not feel European footsteps until127 years later when British captain James Cook came ashore. By the beginning of the 19th century Northland’s bays were giving shelter to sealers and whaling boats from many nations and the Bay of Islands town of Russell became infamous for its raucous shore leave. With traders came muskets, with settlers came missionaries. With property came bloodshed and the need for agreement. In 1840 at a place called Waitangi the Māori chief Hone Heke became the first of 46 to sign the founding document of bi-cultural New Zealand. More than 500 Māori leaders followed.
The Maori view of creation in which all nature was seen as a great kinship tracing its origins back to a single pair, the Sky Father and the Earth Mother, was a conception which they brought with them when they came from Central Polynesia.
Some Maori Gods;
Ao - personification of light and the world of the living
Ārohirohi - goddess of mirages
Auahitūroa - personification of comets, and the origin of fire
Haumia-tiketike (Haumi) - god of wild or uncultivated food
Hine-nui-te-pō - goddess of night and death, and ruler of the underworld
Ika-Roa - the fish that gave birth to all the stars in the Milky Way
Ikatere - fish god; father of all sea creatures
Kiwa - divine guardian of the ocean
Kui - chthonic demigod
Mahuika - fire goddess
Makeatutara - father of Māui and guardian of the underworld
Maru - god of war
Māui - demigod and culture hero
Papatūānuku (Papa) - primordial earth mother
Pūhaorangi - celestial god
Punga - ancestor of sharks, lizard, rays and all things ugly
Ranginui (Rangi) - primordial sky father
Rehua - star god with the power of healing
Rohe - goddess of the spirit world and wife of Māui
Rongo - god of cultivated food
Rongomai - the name of a number of separate beings
Ruaumoko - god of volcanoes, earthquakes and seasons
Tama-nui-te-rā - personification of the sun
Tāne - god of forests and birds
Tane-rore - personification of shimmering air
Tangaroa - god of the sea
Tangotango - celestial goddess
Tāwhaki - supernatural being associated with thunder and lightning
Tāwhirimātea - god of weather, thunder, lightning, rain, wind and storms
Te Uira - personification of lightning
Tinirau - guardian of fish
Tūmatauenga - god of war
Tū-te-wehiwehi - father of all reptiles
Uenuku - god of rainbows
Whaitiri - personification of thunder
Whiro - lord of darkness and embodiment of evil