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The conspirators cut great poles with which to prop up Heaven. But the father and mother were not to be easily separated. They clung to each other despite the efforts of their unnatural sons. Then Tané, the tree-god, standing on head and hands, placed his feet against Heaven and, pushing hard, forced Rangi upwards. In that attitude the trees, the children of Tané, remain to this day.
Enough to make family trees that go back to the Norman conquest appear insignificant. I had known an old Maori priest who traced his ancestry to Rangi and Papa, through one hundred and eighty-two generations, 4,550 years. The Easter Islanders spoke of fifty-seven generations, and in Raratonga ninety pairs of ancestors are recited. The pride of the white man melts before such records.
Thus was the separation accomplished, and Rangi and Papa must for ever remain asunder. Yet the tears of Heaven still trickle down and fall as dew-drops upon the face of his spouse, and the mists that rise in the evening from her bosom are the sighs of regret which she sends up to her husband on high. Vengeance, however, fell upon the conspirators.
All beings, gods, heroes and men, are sprung from the ancient union of Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa. Rangi was the father and Earth the great mother of all. Even now, in these days, the rain, the snow, the dew and the clouds are the creative powers which come down from Rangi to mother Earth and cause the trees, the shrubs and the plants to grow in spring and flourish in summer.
He became the universe. In the Windward Isles he has a wife, Papa the rock = Papa, Earth, wife of Rangi, Heaven, in Maori mythology. But we may distinguish: in the Zuñi hymn we have the myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, but Heaven is not the Eternal, Awonawilona, who 'thought himself out into the void, before which, as in the Polynesian hymn, 'there was no sky.
Heaven and Earth had children, who grew up and lived in this thick night, and they were unhappy because they could not see. Between the bodies of their parents they were imprisoned, and there was no light. The names of the children were Tumatuenga, Tane Mahuta, Tutenganahau, and some others. So they all consulted as to what should be done with their parents, Rangi and Papa.
Just as Rangi and Papa, in New Zealand, had many children, so had Uranus and Gaea. As in New Zealand, some of these children were gods of the various elements. Among them were Oceanus, the deep, and Hyperion, the sun as among the children of Earth and Heaven, in New Zealand, were the Wind and the Sea.
To Rangi, the Heaven, the privileged souls of chiefs and priests returned after death, for from Rangi had come down their ancestors the gods, the fathers of the heroes. For the souls of the common people there was in prospect no such lofty and serene abode. They could not hope to climb after death to the tenth heaven, where dwelt Rehua, the Lord of Loving-kindness, attended by an innumerable host.
Then he pushed hard with his head and feet. Then wailed Heaven and exclaimed Earth, "Wherefore this murder? Why this great sin? Why destroy us? Why separate us?" But Tane pushed and pushed: Rangi was driven far away into the air. "They became visible, who had hitherto been concealed between the hollows of their parents' breasts."
Only the storm-god differed from his brethren: he arose and followed his father, Rangi, and abode with him in the open spaces of the sky. This is the Maori story of the severing of the wedded Heaven and Earth. Now let us turn from New Zealand to Athens, as she was in the days of Pericles.
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