Polynesian

Polynesian mythology spans the vast triangle of the Pacific Ocean — from Hawai'i in the north to Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the south to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east. The Polynesian peoples, who colonized this immense ocean between roughly 1500 BCE and 1200 CE, carried their gods, genealogies, and navigation knowledge across thousands of miles of open water. Core figures recur across the triangle with local variations: Maui, the trickster demigod who fished up islands and snared the sun; Tangaroa (Ta'aroa, Kanaloa), god of the sea; Tu (Ku), god of war; Rongo (Lono), god of agriculture and peace. In Hawai'i, Pele the volcano goddess is among the most vivid mythological figures on Earth — her eruptions at Kilauea are not metaphor but living theophany. Polynesian sacred sites — the marae (stone temple platforms) of Tahiti and the Marquesas, the heiau of Hawai'i, the wharenui of the Maori — anchor genealogy and spiritual power to specific places. This is a living tradition: in Aotearoa, Maori spiritual authority over ancestral lands has legal force.