Tane and Hine-ahu-one (Earth Maiden)

Tane observed that the tamariki without exception were male and so set about redressing the imbalance. Using the female substance, the earth, Tane formed the first anthropomorphic female and mediated the spirit into her through his breath.

He called this manageable female Hine-ahu-one and begat from her a daughter called Hine-titama. Tane took her to wife. One day she asked him who her father was, and his reply was that she might ask the walls of the house. [The walls of the house were of timber and Tane was referring to his many roles: the father, husband, giver of shelter and so on.] When she learned the answer she fled in shame and eventually arrived at Rarohenga, the underworld. [The shame did not, as is sometimes supposed, spring from the incest but from a violation by Tane of a fundamental principle of social relations, namely sharing. So long as there was only one woman Tane was entitled to her exclusively. As soon as there were more than one under his jurisdiction he was bound to share. This he failed to do.] Tane followed and implored her to return with him to the world of light. She declined, saying that she would remain to welcome their descendants into her bosom after the completion of their lives in the world of light and that he should return there and welcome them into it. Tane tearfully agreed. In her new role Hine-titama is called Hine- nui-i-te-po (Great lady of te po). The korero tahito ends.

The tamariki lack the generative power and on this account there is some sense of failure. The Maori on the street of Ruatoria has only vague notions about the whole thing. The power that the tamariki lack is possessed by Hine-ahu-one who transmits it to her daughter Hine-titama. Hine-titama bears children for whom it is clear for the first time that this life has an end. Henceforth it may be said that people are bom only to die and because of this the womb has sometimes been referred to as te whare o te mate (the house of death).

The Maori on the street of Ruatoria is disinclined to subscribe to this piece of inverted logic. As descendant of Maui he knows the myth that tells how his ancestor met his end: strangled while attempting to enter the womb of the slumbering Hine-titama in her role as Hine-nui-i-te- po. In his view it is an ignominious end. Some say Maui wished to return to the pre-bom state and others that he wanted to obtain immortality. But the korero tahito about Ruaumoko tells us of man’s innate wish to be born, and as for immortality, the wairua (soul) fives forever.

At the end of this life the physical part of the dead return, rather than proceed, to the bosom of the ancestress Hine-nui-i-te-po. Thepo in her name has made for an interpretation such as the ‘grand lady of the night’. I wonder whether the reference is not Te Po—the ‘grand lady of Te Po’? If this is so then the boundaries of Te Po lie on the other side of conception and through the doorway that is death. This interpretation of that part of her name seems to be borne out in the addresses made to the dead in the form of farewells and travelling directions: haere atu ki ou tipuna te hanga tamoko kei TePo (‘precede us to your ancestors, the tattooed ones at Te Po’).

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Source: Clarke Peter et al. (eds.). The World's Religions. Routledge,1988. — 995 p.. 1988

Tane and Hine-ahu-one (Earth Maiden)

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