The Legend of Rangi and Papa, the creation of New Zealand

“It was nigh — dense, black, oppressive night! . . . In an obscure corner the children of Rangi and of Papa, cramped, cribbed, cabined, and confined, lay huddled. . . Ta-whiri-matea, it will be remembered, had threatened vengeance upon his brother gods if they carried their design into execution of separating by force their father and mother, so now from every portion of the body of Papa he gathered the elements of his power. With dense black clouds he hid the face of his father, and the intervening space between the clouds and his mother he lit with sheets of sudden lurid flame. . . it was entirely owing to the bursting-forth of the stormy fury of Ta-whiri-matea that large portions of Papa’s body disappeared. Wise men in these modern days affirm that the sea rose and covered the dry land so that it became submerged, but we know that the angry god in his fury swallowed it up. . . Rangi became reconciled to his fate to forever dwell in heaven. . . though far removed, Papa still fondly clings to Rangi. Her forest-clad bosom heaves as, like the fleeting vapors of the morn, her signs escape and ascend to her lord, while radiantly he beams back upon his beloved. . .“