Heaven and Earth were once joined.
Ranginui the Sky father and and Papatuanuku the Earth mother held each other in tight embrace. They had many children who, lost in the darkness between their parents began to wonder how it would be to live in light. They talked amongst themselves whether it would be better to slay their parents or push them apart.
First spoke Tumatauenga, the fiercest of Rangi and Papa's children; 'Let's slay them' he suggested. Then spoke Tane Mahuta; 'No, it is best that we push them apart to let the heaven stand well above us and the earth lie under our feet. Let the sky become like a stranger and the earth remain close to us as our nursing mother'.
All the brothers agreed to this except Tawhirimatea, the father of winds and storms, and he, fearing that his kingdom was about to be overthrown, grieved at the thought that his parents were to be wrenched apart.
The others put thier plan in to action. First Rongomatane, the god of the cultivated food and crops of man rose up and pushed at his parents to part them. Next Tangaroa, the god of sea and reptiles rose up and he too pushed at his parents to part them. Haumiatiketike was next. The god and father of food that grows without cultivation tried also but without effect. Each tried in vain. Tumatauenga the god of fierce human beings struggled to do the same. Lastly, the god of forests and birds and insects tried to part his parents. He paused. He planted his head firmly on his mother earth, Papatuanuku. His feet he stretched upward to the sky father, Ranginui. With all the strength of his legs and back he forced and pushed and struggled to wrench them free from each other. With each tear, Rangi and Papa cried out with grief and pain, frightened by separation. No sooner had earth and heaven parted, than the multitudes of human beings created within the darkness were discovered.
Then also, within the god of winds and storms, Tawhirimatea, the one who had wanted to keep his parents together began to build a fierce desire to wage war on his brothers. This god of hurricanes also dreads that the world become too beautiful. So, he ascended to his father and dispatched his children to the four ends of creation and so became the four winds. Up until today the earth mother, Papatuanuku and Sky father, Ranginui are separated. Yet their love continues and their grief is ongoing. The soft warm sighs of Papatuanuku and her loving bosom ever still rise up to meet him, ascending from the woody mountains and valleys. These sighs, men call mist. And from the vast heaven, through the long nights of separation from this beloved, Ranginui drops frequent tears upon his wife's bosom, and men seeing these, term them dew drops.
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