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 ...

, Rūaumoko (also known as Rūamoko) is the god of

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

es and

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

s. He is the youngest son of Ranginui (the Sky father) and Papatūānuku (the Earth mother) (commonly called

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 ...

). Ruaumoko Patera, named after this god, is one of many paterae (shallow craters) on Io, one of Jupiter's moons.

Origin story

After

were separated by their sons, Rangi cried, and his tears drenched the land. To stop this, the sons decided to turn Papa face down, so Rangi and Papa could no longer see each other's sorrow. Rūaumoko was at his mother's breast when this happened, so he was carried into the world below. He was given fire for warmth die by Tama-kaka, and his movements below the earth cause earthquakes and volcanoes. Another version tells that he remains in Papa's womb, with some variants saying it was to keep Papa company after her separation from Rangi. In these versions, his movements in the womb cause earthquakes. The earthquakes Rūaumoko causes are in turn responsible for the change of seasons. Depending on the time of year, the earthquakes cause the warmth, or cold, of Papa to come to the surface of the land, resulting in the warming, or cooling of the Earth. Rūaumoko pulls on the ropes that control the land causing the shimmering effect of hot air, called haka of Tane-rore, and in some versions, earthquakes. In some traditions, Rūaumoko creates the Auckland volcanic field alongside his brother Mataaho, in retribution for a war between two rival tribes of

patupaiarehe Patupaiarehe are supernatural beings () in Māori mythology that are described as pale to fair skinned with blonde hair or red hair, usually having the same stature as ordinary people, and never tattooed. They can draw mist to themselves, but t ...

References

External links

Photo
of

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and y ...

of Rūaumoko in

Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa (Māori language, Māori for 'Waka huia, the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the Nation ...

Ruaumoko – God of Earthquakes
on the

Earthquake Commission The Natural Hazards Commission – Toka Tū Ake is a New Zealand Crown entity that invests in natural disaster research and education and provides natural disaster insurance to residential property owners. It is a continuation of the Earthq ...

website
Earthquakes in Māori tradition
article in '' Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' Māori gods Nature gods Earth gods Volcano gods {{Māori-myth-stub