Rehab
Rehua is one of the great gods in New Zealand's Māori mythology , the star god . He lives in heaven with the gods of the world creation Rangi and Papa - the heavenly father and the earth goddess - and is their direct son.
Rehua is also the father of Kaitangata and the ancestor of the legendary demigod Māui .
According to a legend of the Ngāi Tahu tribe in New Zealand's South Island , Rehua is the eldest son of Rangi and Papa, who initially existed only as light but later assumed human form before ascending to heaven. There he was visited by his brother Tāne . Rehua had birds in his hair. Rehua and his servants prepared birds as a meal for Tāne, which frightened him, because the birds had eaten lice from Rehua's head, which made them tapu , that is, sacred. Rehua gave Tāne some birds and also trees, from whose fruits the birds ate, and Tāne, the god of forests and birds, brought these birds and trees back from his journey. Since then there have been forests and birds on earth.
Rehua is a very bright star in the sky. For the TUHOE - master of Māori in the east of the North Island of New Zealand Rehua is the star Antares . Others see him in Betelgeuse or Sirius . Because he lives so far up in heaven, Rehua remains untouched by death, has the power to make the blind see again, to raise the dead and to heal diseases.
See also
literature
- Margaret Orbell: A Concise Encyclopedia of Māori Myth and Legend. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch 1998, ISBN 0-908812-56-6 .
- Edward Tregear : The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Lyon and Blair, Wellington 1891 (Reprinted. Cadsonbury Publishing, Christchurch 2001).