MITHS AND LEGENDS

By getting involved more and more in depth on New Zealand’s culture, we have to learn about myths and legends belong to the society in general; furthermore, these are an important part in the social upbringing and social education. Myths and legends have arrived to us from ancestor through many generations, and they tell us, many incredible stories about many themes, such as the world’s creation or maybe an incredible war in which participated some gods or extraordinary creatures of fire, ice or winged.

Before continuing, we are going to define both terms according to Oxford Dictionary, in which Myth is defined as “A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events” (Oxforddictionaries.com). 
In addition, legend is defined as “A traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated” (Oxforddictionaries.com). So we can understand that myths are stories related to supernatural events and legends are popular o historical stories but without a valid support.

Knowing already the meaning from both terms, we can continue with the issue, although firstly we must specify that the Myths and legends related to our country –New Zealand- belong to the entire continent of Oceania, in which apart from our country New Zealand, includes Australia, Fiji, Nauru,  Kiribati, against other countries. We can say that all of those countries have something in common due to their myths and legends, although with minimal changes in versions of every one.  But we are really interested in how myths and legends are involved inside the New Zealand’s Society and knowing some of these interesting stories.

First of all we have to know how it everything began. In the beginning there was only darkness, it did not exist any sky, earth or gods, just nothingness. From this nothingness born the mother earth, Papa  and the father sky Ranginui. This two were in love and embraced in the darkness, they had many children –who now are the gods of earth. But the children were mad because they had to be in darkness and nothingness just like their parents.  So they decided to separate their mother and father of the embrace, one by one tried but with no succeed, until Tane-Mahuta –God of forest –put his head against his mother and his feet against his father and for a long time tried to separate them, finally succeeding. The sky was finally separated from the earth. However there was a child that was not agree with the separation, he was the god of storms and thunders called Tawhiri Matea, he saw what his brother did and got angry, so he decided to join his father in the sky, after provoking terrible storms and thunders on earth.

Now we know how earth was created and all the things in this world, lets see the story of New Zealand. There was a Goddess that had a premature child his name was Maui. When a child born premature bad things happens around him, because of that she did not want him and threw him into the ocean. The God of sun took him barely dead and raised him until his adolescence.  He returned to earth and took revenge with their mother and brothers for what they had done, he stole the jaw of her sister Muri-Ranga and made a hook. One day he went fishing and used that hook, because he wanted to fish something amazing –and he surely did –he caught a huge piece of land, it was so big that when he lift the hook, the piece of land broke in two, forming the North and South Island of New Zealand.

We talked about some myths of New Zealand, know we are going to talk about some legends, for example a huge animal similar to the famous Yeti, completely covered with hair, big teeth and takes persons to the deepest part of the forest. Maori people call him “Moehau”. Many people are sure that they have seen him.  In 1969 an expedition was made, the only thing found was big footsteps of something unknown, but there is no scientific proof that he really exists.

Other important legend is how people came to New Zealand. The legend tells that Maori people came in canoes around 1350. As a result of an unexpected visit of Kupe – a fisherman of Hawaiki –he one day was fishing in his canoe and a giant octopus grab his hook, he started to follow him trying to trap it, after a lot of effort he did it and noticed that he was in a strange land. He travelled across the new land and found amazing places and animals, marveled by those things he sailed back to his home and talk to his people, telling great stories of that new land. All the people were exited to meet those new things, so they sailed there and called that land “Aoteaora”.