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 ...

, Punga is a supernatural being, the ancestor of

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

lizard Lizard is the common name used for all Squamata, squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most Island#Oceanic isla ...

s, rays, and all deformed, ugly things. All ugly and strange animals are Punga's children. Hence the saying ''Te aitanga a Punga'' (the offspring of Punga) used to describe an ugly person.

Family and mythology

Punga is a son of

Tangaroa Tangaroa (Māori; Takaroa in the South Island dialect; cognate with Tagaloa in Sāmoan) is the great atua of the sea, lakes, rivers, and creatures that live within them, especially fish, in Māori mythology. As Tangaroa-whakamau-tai, he exercis ...

, the god of the sea, and when

Tāwhirimātea In Māori mythology, Tāwhirimātea (or Tāwhiri) is the god of weather, including thunder and lightning, wind, clouds and storms. He is a son of Rangi and Papa, Papatūānuku (Earth goddess, earth mother) and Rangi and Papa, Ranginui (sky father ...

(god of storms) made war against his brothers after they separated

Rangi and Papa In Māori mythology the primal couple Rangi and Papa (or Ranginui and Papatūānuku) appear in a creation myth explaining the origin of the world and the Māori people (though there are many different versions). In some South Island dialects, Ran ...

(sky and earth), the two sons of Punga, Ikatere and Tū-te-wehiwehi, had to flee for their lives. Ikatere fled to the sea, and became the ancestor of certain fish, while Tū-te-wehiwehi took refuge in the forest, and became the ancestor of lizards.

Etymology

As is appropriate for a son of Tangaroa, Punga's name has a maritime origin - in the Māori language, 'punga' means 'anchor stone' - in tropical

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

, related words refer to coral stone, also used as an anchor (Craig 1989:219, Tregear 1891:374). According to some versions, Punga is the son of Rangi-potiki (father sky) and Papatūānuku (mother earth) and a twin brother to Here. In a version of the epic of

Tāwhaki In Māori mythology, Tāwhaki is a semi-supernatural being associated with lightning and thunder. Genealogy The genealogy of Tāwhaki varies somewhat in different accounts. In general, Tāwhaki is a grandson of Whaitiri, a cannibalistic goddess ...

attributed by White to the

Ngāti Hau Ngāti Hau are the Māori people, Māori ''iwi'' (tribes) of the Whanganui River area in New Zealand. There are two stories of where the name ''Ngāti Hau'' comes from. One is that it comes from Haupipi, who arrived in New Zealand on the ''Aotea ...

tribe, Punga is named as a brother of Karihi and Hemā; however, in many versions, he is a cousin of the brothers Karihi and Tāwhaki (Craig 1989:219, Tregear 1891:374, White 1887:95, 125).

Elsewhere in Polynesia

In some

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

an stories, Hema and Punga are sons of Aikanaka and Hinahanaiakamalama (Tregear 1891:374).

References

{{Reflist * R. D. Craig, ''Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology'' (Greenwood Press: New York), 1989. * E. R. Tregear, ''Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary'' (Lyon and Blair: Lambton Quay), 1891. * J. White, ''The Ancient History of the Maori'', Volume I (Government Printer: Wellington), 1887. Māori gods