Kia ora ra e te iwi! I have a Patreon where I hope to add some additional value. If you'd like the kaupapa, and you appreciate this mahi, you can give a koha here:
Whakatauki - He takapau pokai, nga uri o Paheke. [Kohikohinga Whakatauki a Raupo.]
Kia ora ra! I thought I'd give focus to Papatuanuku today, seeing as it was mothers day recently, and one of the foundational korero of many iwi is that Papa is our great first Mother.
I source the below intro to Papa from Margaret Orbell's book [A Concise Encyclopedia of Maori Myth and Legend, pg 100] , and the pakiwaitara I share comes from George Grey's Nga Mahinga A Nga Tupuna, pg. 7-13.
"Papa's name means Foundation, or Flat Surface. She is the earth that stretches out beneath her husband Rangi, the sky, and she is the first woman. The world came into being when Tane separated Rangi and Papa, pushing Rangi upwards and allowing light to come between them.
Papa has a number of extended names, such as Papatuanuku (Widespread Papa). She supports and sustains her human children, providing food and the other conditions necessary for life, yet inevitably she is inferior to her husband Rangi because she lies below that sacred realm, and Night (Te Po) is within her. The earth is the house of Aitua (Misfortune), and her children enter her body when they die. The sky, on the other hand, is the house of life, because the persons who light it live forever.
As the primal parents, Rangi and Papa set the pattern for their descendants. Women were thought to take their nature from the first female: while men in general were sacred and set apart (tapu), women's nature was in general everyday, ordinary, profane (noa). All this and much more was established in the beginning.
The genealogies that trace the history of the world begin with Rangi and Papa, then come down through the generations to the present day."