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. 'Shall we slay them, or shall we separate them?' 'Go to,' said Tumatuenga, 'let us slay them.' 'No,' cried Tane-Mahuta, 'let us rather separate them. Let one go upwards, and become a stranger to us; let the other remain below, and be a parent to us.' Only Tawhiri-Matea (the wind) had pity on his own father and mother. Then the fruit-gods, and the war-god, and the sea-god (for all the children of Papa and Rangi were gods) tried to rend their parents asunder. Last rose the forest-god, cruel Tutenganahau. He severed the sinews which united Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa. 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.'
There is no reason to suppose that the Maori borrowed their myth from the Greeks, or the Greeks from the Maori: the similarity is to be traced either to a common origin, or, as most writers of the present day seem inclined to suppose, to the independent workings of the human mind under similar circumstances. The Greek myth, which distressed thoughtful and pious minds like that of Socrates, was a survival, like the other scandalous tales about the gods, from the time when the ancestors
