Encyclopedia > Hine-nui-te-Po

  Article Content

Hine-nui-te-Po

In Polynesian mythology, Hine-nui-te-Po is a goddess of night and death, and the Queen of the underworld. She was a daughter of Tane and Hina. She fled to the underworld because she discovered that Tane, whom she had married, was also her father.

The Maori believe that Maui attempted to make mankind immortal by crawling through her body while she slept, but a bird awoke her by laughing and she crushed him with her vagina; Maui was the first man to die.

With Tangaroa, she was the mother of Oro.

Alternative: Hine, Hina-Tu-A-Uta



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
North Haven, New York

... density is 105.9/km² (274.2/mi²). There are 578 housing units at an average density of 82.3/km² (213.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the village is ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 21.8 ms