Tane separating sky and earth

At a Glance

• Central figures: Tane (Tane Mahuta), god of forests and birds, son of Rangi the Sky-Father and Papa the Earth-Mother; his brothers Tu, Tangaroa, Rongo, Haumia, and Tawhiri.
• Setting: Aotearoa (New Zealand), in Maori tradition; the separation of Rangi and Papa is foundational to the Maori cosmogony preserved in oral whakapapa and recorded by scholars including Sir George Grey in the nineteenth century.
• The turn: Tane, after his brothers argue and fail, braces his shoulders against the earth and pushes his father Rangi upward with his legs, tearing sky from earth apart.
• The outcome: Light enters the world for the first time; the children of Rangi and Papa can stand upright; Tawhiri, the god of storms, refuses to accept the separation and makes war on his brothers.
• The legacy: The grief of Rangi and Papa continues as rain falling from the sky and mist rising from the earth - the tears of two parents who can see each other but never touch again.

There was no light. The sons of Rangi and Papa lay in the narrow dark between their parents’ bodies, pressed flat like seeds between stones. Sky-Father lay face down upon Earth-Mother, and Earth-Mother held him close, and neither would move. The sons grew in this dark. They grew arms and legs but had no room to stretch them. They grew eyes but had nothing to see.

There were six brothers. Tu, who would become the god of war. Tangaroa, who would become the god of the sea. Rongo, who would become the god of cultivated plants. Haumia, who would become the god of wild foods gathered from the forest floor. Tawhiri, who would become the god of storms. And Tane, who would become the god of forests, of birds, of everything that stands in the light. But none of them were anything yet. They were children in the dark.

The Argument Between Brothers

Tu spoke first. He said they should kill their parents. Cut them apart, he said, and let the blood run where it would. He was Tu - he thought in terms of killing.

Tane said no. He said they should push Rangi upward, away from Papa, and let the sky become the sky and the earth become the earth. Their parents would live. They would grieve, but they would live.

Tangaroa agreed with Tane. Rongo agreed with Tane. Haumia agreed with Tane.

Tawhiri said nothing at first. Then Tawhiri said he did not agree with anyone. He said their parents should stay as they were, locked together, the world held shut. He did not want light. He did not want separation. He wanted things to remain.

The brothers did not listen to Tawhiri.

Rongo and Tangaroa Try

Rongo tried first. He put his hands against Rangi’s body and pushed. The sky did not move. Rongo’s arms were strong enough to make taro grow through hard earth, but the sky was heavier than earth.

Tangaroa tried. He pushed with the force of every wave that would ever break on every reef. The sky shifted - barely, a finger’s width - and then settled back. Tangaroa fell back, breathing hard. The dark closed around them again.

Haumia tried. He could not even brace himself properly in the cramped space. His push accomplished nothing.

Tu said he would try, but Tane stepped forward. Tane did not use his hands.

Tane’s Shoulders and Legs

Tane lay on his back against Papa, his mother, the earth. He placed his shoulders flat against her body. Then he raised his legs and set his feet against the underside of Rangi, his father, the sky.

He pushed.

His legs were longer than his brothers’ arms. His back was braced against the entire surface of the earth. He pushed with his legs the way a tree pushes against the weight of the sky - slowly, steadily, with a force that does not stop.

The sky groaned. Papa cried out. Rangi’s fingers gripped the earth, and where they dug in, valleys formed. Tane pushed harder. The tendons that held sky to earth stretched and tore. Light came in through the cracks - the first light, raw and white, painful to eyes that had never seen it.

Tane did not stop. He straightened his legs, inch by inch, and the gap widened. Rain fell from Rangi’s body where the separation hurt him. Mist rose from Papa’s skin where she reached upward and could not touch her husband. The brothers stood for the first time. They blinked in the new brightness and saw each other’s faces.

Tane pushed until Rangi was high above the earth, far enough that the light filled every space between. The world had a floor and a ceiling. The world had room.

Tawhiri’s War

Tawhiri was furious. He had said no. His brothers had not listened. He went up to the sky with his father Rangi and clung there, and from that height he made war on every brother below.

He sent his children - the winds. Apu-hau, the fierce squall. Apu-matangi, the whirlwind. Ao-nui, the great cloud. Ao-roa, the long cloud. Ao-pouri, the dark cloud. He sent them against Tangaroa first. The sea rose in waves the height of cliffs. Tangaroa’s children - the fish and the sea creatures - panicked. Some fled deeper into the ocean. Some crawled onto land and became lizards. Tangaroa himself retreated to the deep places and did not come out.

Tawhiri turned on Tane’s forests. He ripped trees from the ground. He snapped trunks. He flattened whole groves. The birds of Tane scattered, screaming. Rongo and Haumia hid themselves in the body of their mother Papa - Rongo burrowed into the ground and became the kumara hidden in the soil, Haumia crouched beneath fern fronds and became the roots of the forest floor.

Only Tu stood against Tawhiri. Tu, who had wanted to kill their parents in the first place, who feared nothing. Tu braced himself on the earth and let the winds beat against him and did not fall. The storms raged, and Tu endured, and eventually Tawhiri’s fury spent itself. The winds did not stop - they never stopped - but they could not break Tu.

Rain and Mist

Tu was angry with his brothers for hiding, and he punished them in time. But that is another telling.

What remained was the world as it now stands. Rangi above, Papa below. The sky held high on the pillars of Tane’s forests, where the tallest trees - the kauri, the totara, the rimu - still press their crowns upward as if remembering the work their god performed.

Rangi weeps. His tears fall as rain. Papa sighs, and her warm breath rises as mist from rivers and valleys in the early morning. They can see each other across the distance their son made. They cannot close it.

The brothers spread into their domains. Tangaroa took the sea. Tane clothed the earth in trees and filled the branches with birds. Rongo tended the cultivated gardens. Tu walked among men and taught them to fight. Tawhiri still sends his storms when the anger returns.

And the light that Tane let in has not gone out.