Who is rongomatane

Meanwhile, over in Hawaii, Rongo is known as Lono. HTML: To link to this page, just copy and paste the link below into your blog, web page or email. Article last revised on April 30, by Rowan Allen. Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders. Link to this page HTML: To link to this page, just copy and paste the link below into your blog, web page or email.

Cite this article Here's the info you need to cite this page. Shearer , Wellington. We now come to the third member of the trio, Tane, Tu, and Rongo, the most important of the departmental tutelary beings of Maori myth.

In New Zealand we find that Rongo presides over the peace department, he is what we call the god of peace, of peacemaking ceremonial, and of the art of agriculture. He is also known as Rongo-maraeroa.

His functions are said to extend to such manifestations and activities of human sympathy as hospitality, generosity, and all the courtesies of life coming under the head of the expression manaaki tangata. At Mangaia Rongo seems to have been viewed as the principal god, though his attributes and functions are very different from those of the New Zealand Rongo. The desirable qualities and activities of the latter are referred to at p. Rongo is said to have been the principal being of the original Whare-kura, which was situated at the place known as Hawaiki-nui, in the far-distant homeland of Irihia.

To Rongo-maraeroa pertain all cultivated food products, the kumara, taro, hue, ari , and korau , and such other products as may have been cultivated in past times and other lands.

These products are the sweet potato, Colocasia antiquorum , the gourd—while the last two are doubtful. Maori tradition describes ari as a "bloodless"? Ari is the Dravidian name for rice. The korau is another puzzle, for we know it merely as the name of the introduced turnip.

There was a considerable amount of tapu pertaining to agricultural operations among the Maori folk, and all such ritual and tapu were connected with Rongo. He was the protector of crops, and he was appealed to as the one to cause all crops to flourish and bear abundantly.

Pani and others appealed to for the same reason were inferior beings. We have a singular form of name in "Rongomatane," as it is usually written, but which presumably should be Rongo-ma-Tane, which can only be rendered as "Rongo and Tane. In local lore, as among Ngati-Awa of the Bay of Plenty, it occurs as though it were simply a lengthened form of the name Rongo. In the Rev. Gill's notes on traditions of the Cook Islands we note that Rongo and Rongo-ma-Tane are given as two separate beings Journal of the Polynesian Society , vol.

Rongo is essentially and originally lord of abundance of harvest. It is. So we occasionally, and very rarely too, find the names of Rongo and Tane conjoined and honoured together as lords of abundance. This being is best known to the Maori as Rongo and Rongo-maraeroa—certainly not as Rongo-ma-Tane, which form is much less often heard, though Tregear does not agree with this. Ellis shows us that this peculiar conjunction of names was known at Tahiti. He writes it as "Romatane," instead of "Ro'o-ma-Tane," the apostrophe marking the place of the dropped ng.

At first he strove with his arms to move them, but with no success. And so he paused, and the pause was an immense period of time. Then he placed his shoulders against the Earth, his mother, and his feet against the Sky, his Father. He thrust with all his strength. Far beneath him he pressed the Earth. Far above he thrust the Sky, and held him there. The sinews that bound them were stretched, taunt. Tumatauenga sprang up and slashed at the bonds that bound his parents and the blood spilt red on the earth.

Today this is the kokowai or Ochre, the sacred red earth that was created when the first blood was spilt at the dawn of time. Finally the separation was accomplished and the children of Rangi and Papa knew light for the first time and the children of Tane - the trees, birds and insects of the forest - were able to breathe, see and move.

Tawhiri-matea, the only son to have objected to the separation, was so angered by the pain suffered by his parents and the regard with which Tane-mahuta was now held by other living things that he followed Rangi to the realm above and there begot his own offspring, the wind, rain and storms. He unleashed these on the children of Tane in retribution. He hurled himself down from the skies as a hurricane and uprooted Tane's trees.

Eventually, after attacking all his other brothers, Tawhiri-matea returned to the Sky whence he and his children continue to descend from time to time to plague the Earth and her occupants. It was Tane-mahuta who then created the first woman out of earth and procreated with her. Their descendants, produced a line of men-like gods and god like men - there are many more associated legends covering the path to the world we know today.

The Origin of North Island One appropriate legend concerns Maui, who is credited with fishing up the North Island of New Zealand - a very appropriate myth bearing in mind the islands volcanic history.