Papatuanuku

Papatūānuku (often revered simply as Papa, personified as the Great Earth Mother in traditional Māori cosmology in Aotearoa) is the primordial feminine matrix that sustains all living beings, mountains, waterways and humankind. In ancient Polynesian narratives, Papatūānuku remained from the beginning of time locked in a dense, unbroken embrace with Ranginui, keeping the lineages of her divine children (ngā atua) imprisoned in the dark void of the cosmic Night (Te Pō). Faced with the children's agony and immobility, the separation of the parents was accomplished through the vertical force of Tāne Mahuta, opening the expanses of the World of Light (Te Ao Mārama). Because the constant sight of her beloved husband and the pain of the wounds provoked an excessive weeping in Rangi and Papa that nearly flooded the dry land, the gods turned Papatūānuku face down (the cosmic rite known as Te Hurihanga o Papa), so that her face gazes toward the underworld (Rarohenga) while her fertile back sustains the inhabited world. From her comes the sacred red clay of Kurawaka, from which Tāne shaped the first human woman, Hine-ahu-one. In Māori community life, the bond with Papatūānuku is expressed in the double meaning of the word whenua, which designates both the territorial land and the maternal placenta, traditionally buried in the tribal soil to consecrate the individual's existential belonging to the cosmos.

9 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research

The fertile soil, the mountains, the plants and the rising mist

Primary sources

• Shortland, Edward (Native Secretary), Maori Religion and Mythology (Cosmogony and Land Tenure Chapters). translation: London: Longmans, Green, 1882 (reprint). read
• Whatahoro, Hoani Te, The Lore of the Whare-wananga (Cosmogony of Te Matorohanga). translation: Translated and annotated by S. Percy Smith. New Plymouth: Polynesian Society Memoirs, Vol. III, 1913. read
• Grey, Sir George (Governor of New Zealand), Polynesian Mythology (Māori Cosmogony and Traditions). translation: 1st Edition. London: John Murray, 1855. read

Studies

• Firth, Raymond, Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1929. open
• Tregear, Edward, The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary (entry for Papa). Wellington, N.Z.: Lyon and Blair, 1891, 1891. open