The Gods of Polynesia

This group holds the deities of the Polynesian peoples spread across the Pacific, from Hawaii to New Zealand to the many islands between. Related traditions share a common ancestral stock of gods whose names shift from island to island: Tangaroa, Kanaloa, Tagaloa are one sea-god across the region.

The browser will find creator and sky figures, the demigod trickster Maui who fished up islands and snared the sun, and major Hawaiian and Maori gods such as Kane, Ku, Lono, Pele of the volcano, and Tane and Tu. The atlas records the regional variants and notes that these traditions remain culturally significant to Pacific peoples today.