Tane-mahuta
Tane-mahuta OceaniaIn Maori mythology, the father of forests and of all things that inhabit them, or that are constructed from trees. He separated Rangi, the sky father, from Papa, the earth mother, but lost place to Tu-matauenga, the god and father of fierce human beings. His chief enemy, however, was the sea god Tangaroa. In Tahiti, Ave-aitu, ‘the tailed god’, was the leader of the hosts of Tane-mahuta in time of war. Ave-aitu was probably a sorcerer god, envisaged as a meteor, cone-shaped with a large head and a long fiery tail.
The Hawaiians called Tane-mahuta by the name of Kane and made his antagonist the squid god Kanaloa, who was associated with sorcery and the underworld. The legends place Tane-mahuta and Tangaroa, or Kane and Kanaloa, as the good and evil wishers of mankind. They are the equivalent of the Melanesian myth about To-Kabinana and To-Karvuvu. The curse of Tangaroa, for instance, introduced death into the world.
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