Tane holds the forest and everything in it. Trees are spoken of as his children, and so are the birds and the insects, which places the whole standing world of Aotearoa inside one set of relationships rather than treating it as scenery. In many accounts he clothes his mother, first with plants set the wrong way up and then, correcting himself, with trees rooted in the earth and reaching toward his father. Customary practice around felling a tree, taking timber for a canoe or a meeting house, and taking birds is spoken of in those terms, and the tikanga governing it is held and applied by the communities concerned rather than set out in a reference entry.
He is also credited with ascending to the highest heaven and returning with nga kete e toru, the three baskets of knowledge, which are named differently across accounts and which brought knowledge into the world below. In another strand he forms the first woman, Hineahuone, from the earth at Kurawaka, and from her descends Hinetitama, who becomes Hinenuitepo.
He is a present figure and not a closed chapter. The great kauri in the Waipoua Forest in Northland carries the name Tane Mahuta, is among the largest living trees in the country, and stands within the rohe of Te Roroa. The response to kauri dieback, including the closures and the washing stations on the tracks, has been argued and administered in exactly those terms, as care owed to a living ancestor.