The Separation of Rangi and Papa

In Maori cosmological tradition, the sky father Ranginui and the earth mother Papatuanuku begin the world locked together in a close embrace, with no light or space between them, and their children, the gods who will come to govern the natural world, are born and grow crushed in the cramped darkness of that embrace. The children debate what should be done about their parents' unbroken closeness. Several favor killing Rangi and Papa outright to gain freedom and light, but Tane, god of forests and birds, argues instead for forcing his parents apart rather than destroying them, a proposal the others eventually accept.

One by one, several of the brothers attempt the separation and fail. Rongo, god of cultivated food, tries and cannot move his parents; Tangaroa, god of the sea, and Haumia, god of wild-growing food, each try in turn with no more success; Tumatauenga, god of war and humankind, tries as well and also fails, a failure later tradition connects to his subsequent turn toward warring against his own siblings instead. Tane alone succeeds, and does so by changing his approach entirely: rather than pushing with his arms and hands as his brothers had, he turns onto his back, plants his powerful legs against the sky, and pushes upward with his legs, gradually levering Ranginui away from Papatuanuku until light floods into the space between them for the first time.

Tawhirimatea, god of winds and storms, is the one sibling who opposes the separation from the start, unwilling to see his parents torn apart from one another. When his brothers proceed regardless, Tawhirimatea follows his father Rangi up into the sky rather than remaining below with the others, and from there wages an ongoing campaign of storms and destructive weather against his brothers' domains, particularly the forests of Tane and the seas of Tangaroa, as an enduring expression of the anger and grief he feels at the forced separation. Tangaroa's own descendants are said to have fled Tawhirimatea's assaults by dividing, some becoming the fish that shelter in the sea and others, under Tane's protection, becoming the reptiles that live on land, an origin story tradition connects directly to this conflict between the storm god and his siblings.

Rangi and Papa themselves are said to continue grieving their separation to this day: Rangi's tears fall to earth as rain, and the mist that rises from Papa each morning is read as her sighs reaching up toward the husband she can no longer embrace. Their separation, while sorrowful for the parents themselves, is nonetheless what makes the ongoing life of the world possible, since it is only in the light and space opened between them that their children, and eventually humanity, are able to grow, multiply, and inhabit the world at all.