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 ...

, Rehua is a very sacred personage, who lives in Te Putahi-nui-o-Rehua in Rangi-tuarea, the tenth and highest of the

heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

s in some versions of Māori lore. Rehua is identified with certain stars. To the Tūhoe people of the North Island he is

Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinisation of names, Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by ...

. Others say he is

Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion (constellation), Orion. It is usually the List of brightest stars, tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second brightest in its constellation. It i ...

, or

Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word (Latin script: ), meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbr ...

. Because he lives in the highest of the skies, Rehua is untouched by death, and has the power to cure blindness, revive the dead, and heal any disease (Orbell 1998:119-120). He is a son of

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 ...

, and the father of Kaitangata, as well as the ancestor 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 ...

(Tregear 1891:381). A

Ngāi Tahu Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori people, Māori (tribe) of the South Island. Its (tribal area) is the largest in New Zealand, and extends from the White Bluffs / Te Parinui o Whiti (southeast of Blenheim, New Zealand, Blenhe ...

legend from the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

speaks of Rehua as the eldest son of Rangi and Papa, who first manifested as lightning, but assumed a human shape when he travelled into the skies. Later his brother

Tāne In Māori mythology, Tāne (also called Tāne-mahuta, Tāne-nui-a-Rangi, Tāne-te-waiora and several other names) is the god of forests and of birds, and the son of Rangi and Papa, Ranginui and Rangi and Papa, Papatūānuku, the sky father and th ...

went to pay him a visit, Rehua had

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in his hair, feeding on his lice. Rehua had his servants cook and prepare the birds as a meal for Tāne, who was shocked and declined to eat them because the birds had eaten the lice from Rehua's head, which was extremely tapu (sacred). However Rehua gave him birds to bring down to this world, and showed him how to snare them. Tāne also brought with him the

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

trees that the birds fed on, and so it is that there are

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s and birds on the

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

(Orbell 1998:119). In

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

, Rehua was a star-god, the star of the New Year, who produced the Twins as well as the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

, and was considered the lord of the year.

Friedrich Ratzel Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would. Life Ratzel's father was th ...

The History of Mankind. (London: MacMillan, 1896) Vol1 Page 314. URL
www.inquirewithin.biz/history/american_pacific/oceania/Maui-deity.htm
accessed 7 June 2010.

References

* M. Orbell, ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Māori Myth and Legend'' (Canterbury University Press: Christchurch), 1998. * E.R. Tregear, ''Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary'' (Lyon and Blair: Lambton Quay), 1891. Māori gods Stellar gods {{deity-stub