“O, woman, Papa, nevermore will I be parted from you; together we will be the world; the parents, Rangi and Papa!”
Then their fourth son was born, Rongo: he was the God-power of Good, and the atua of the Tapu and the sacred incantations; he was the creator of the food for man and the wisdom of cooking and the incantations over the food.
Their fifth son was Tu, the atua of all evil and the god of war.—Ah!——
TANE, THE GOD OF TREES
As you have opened your ears to the song of the old man, who is your friend, my listener, so open now your eyes, that they may show you how night presses upon earth, and darkness has swallowed all, for, know, such was the night and the darkness which reigned between heaven and earth, everlasting, from the first time to the hundredth time, to the thousandth time—Ah, know, my friend, when the world was still dwelling in Te-po-nui then was it Tangaroa, the God of the Oceans, who had taken Papa-tu-a-nuku to wife, and their sons were Tinirau, The Many Hundreds, who founded the Family of the waves which encircle the earth. When Tangaroa had perceived Te-ata-tuhi, the First Glimmer of Light, he wandered forth to find the Gate of Day. Ah, far he wandered, far into the last darknesses, and farther and farther, to the very end of Te-po-nui; but when he came back, then, ha, my listener, then did he find Rangi the ariki over Papa-tu-a-nuku.
Ah, the Heaven was the ariki over the earth!