Hine-nui-te-pō
In Māori mythology, Hine-nui-te-pō (The Great Lady of the Night) is the goddess of night and death and the ruler of the underworld . She is the daughter of Tāne who fled to the underworld after discovering that she was married to her father.
All children of Rangi and Papa , the divine parents, Heavenly Father and Earth Goddess , were male. It was Tāne who first longed for a woman. His mother showed him how to make a woman out of red earth. Then Tāne blew life into Hine-ahuone, the woman-from-earth, and slept with her. Their child was Hine-ata-uira, girl-of-the-evening-red, and Tāne took this daughter as his wife.
One day, while Tāne was out, Hine-ata-uira wondered who her father was. Horrified, she noticed that her husband was also her father and fled to the underworld. Tāne followed her and wanted to make her return. But Hine, now Hine-nui-te-pō, goddess of the underworld, said to him: “Go back and raise our children. I will wait here and receive them. ”So Tāne returned to earth and Hine stayed in the underworld, where she waited for the demigod and hero Māui . This had brought fire to humans , but also mortality - and with it the never-ending procession of mortals into the underworld.
Māui tried to immortalize mankind by trying to crawl between his legs into the sleeping Hine-nui-te-pō in order to come out through the mouth. But at the sight of it the laughter of a bird, the fan tail , woke Hine-nui-te-pō and Māui burst in her vagina . So Maui was the first person to die.
See also
Individual evidence
literature
- BG Biggs: Maori Myths and Traditions. In: AH McLintock (Ed.): Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Volume 2: H-P. Owen, Wellington 1966, pp. 447-454.