Māori mythology Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori people, Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern tales of supernatural events relating to the origins of what was the ...

, Kaitangata is either a mortal son of

Māui Māui or Maui is the great culture hero and trickster in Polynesian mythology. Very rarely was Māui actually worshipped, being less of a deity ( demigod) and more of a folk hero. His origins vary from culture to culture, but many of his main expl ...

, or a son of

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

Rehua. Kaitangata, the son of Māui, is an industrious man who married the female supernatural being

Whaitiri Whaitiri is a female atua and personification of thunder in Māori mythology. She is the grandmother of Tāwhaki and Karihi. Whaitiri is the granddaughter of Te Kanapu, son of Te Uira, both of whom are personified forms of lightning (Reed 19 ...

. Due to his name, Kaitangata means

man A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the f ...

-eater, Whaitiri believed him to be a

cannibal Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecology, ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well ...

as she was. However this proved to be incorrect and she eventually left him because he offended her. Before she returned to heaven as a

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

, she taught Kaitangata how to

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

. With Whaitiri, he was the father of

Hemā * Hemā is a figure in both Hawaiian and Māori mythology. * An epithets of Goddess Lakshmi in Hinduism Māori In Māori mythology, Hema is a son of Whaitiri and Kaitangata and the father of Tāwhaki and Karihi. In North Island stories, he was k ...

References

* B.G. Biggs, 'Maori Myths and Traditions' in A. H. McLintock (editor), ''

Encyclopaedia of New Zealand ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'' is an official encyclopaedia about New Zealand, published in three volumes by the New Zealand Government in 1966. Edited by Alexander Hare McLintock, the parliamentary historian, assisted by two others, it ...

'', 3 Volumes. (Government Printer: Wellington), 1966, II:447-454. *

A.W. Reed Alexander Wyclif Reed (7 March 1908 – 19 October 1979), also known as Clif Reed and A. W. Reed, was a prolific New Zealand publisher and author. Biography Alexander Wyclif Reed, along with his uncle Alfred Hamish Reed, established the publis ...

, ''Treasury of Maori Folklore'' ( A.H. & A.W. Reed:Wellington), 1963. Māori mythology Legendary Māori people {{Māori-myth-stub