Tiki, the Seeker,
Ha, shake in ecstasies....’
And so, with the help of the Shimmering Heat and the Echo, the power of multiplying, he gave life to the first woman.
Marikoriko, or Twilight, was the first woman!
Marikoriko, my listener, was not a child of the gods; she was created out of the sands of the shore and the sacred Red; she takes her descent from the Shimmering Heat and from the Echo, and she became the first wife of Tiki, our father.
Many children were born to Tiki and Marikoriko his wife. Their daughter was Hine-kau-ata-ata, the Floating Shadow. And the children of Hine-kau-ata-ata began their lives as clouds, wandering across the sky. They were light, and flew far away till lost to sight in the distance, or they were heavy and did not move and brooded overhead in rain. Then it was that Papa-tu-a-nuku, the Earth, lay under the spell of the first awakening day.
Among the many children of Tiki and Marikoriko were the sons the Power of Speech and the Power of Growth, who took their sisters to wife, and Te-a-io-whaka-tangata, ‘He who became man’, was born, and he was the father of many children—the Maori children of the world.
This is the wisdom of Tiki, our father, and Marikoriko his wife, the parents of man who peoples the earth. The wisdom of Tiki, our father.
Welcome my guest from the far distance, welcome!