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Oceania
Explore myths, traditions and legendary beings grouped under Oceania.
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Po
Po is a Polynesian concept associated with darkness, night, the unseen world and the earliest stages of creation. It is especially important in Māori and Hawaiian traditions, although the meaning and religious significan…
Pulotu
Pulotu is a name used in several Polynesian traditions for a supernatural realm associated with the dead, ancestral spirits and powerful deities. It is especially prominent in Tongan and Samoan religious traditions, alth…
Ro’o
Ro’o is a name associated in some accounts with the religious traditions of eastern Polynesia, especially Tahiti and the wider Society Islands. The figure is often described as a deity connected with cultivated food, fer…
Roua
Roua is a name associated with Polynesian mythology, but its identity is uncertain and its traditional context is not securely established in the surviving record. Unlike widely documented Polynesian figures such as Māui…
Sisimatailaa
Sisimatailaa is a little-documented figure associated with Samoan mythology and the wider Polynesian cultural region of Oceania. The name appears in modern collections of Polynesian mythological beings, but descriptions …
Ta’aroa
Ta’aroa is a major creator deity in the traditional religion of Tahiti and the Society Islands, in eastern Polynesia. He is often described as a primordial god who existed before the ordered world and brought the heavens…
Tahu
Tahu is a name associated with Polynesian mythology in some modern collections, but it does not identify one clearly documented, pan-Polynesian god. Unlike widely attested figures such as Māui, Tangaroa, Tāne, or Tū, Tah…
Tangiia
Tangiia, also known as Tangiia Nui, is a celebrated ancestral chief in the traditional histories of the Cook Islands, especially Rarotonga. He belongs to the Polynesian traditions of central Eastern Polynesia, but he is …
Taonoui
Taonoui is an obscure name associated with Polynesian mythology, sometimes described in modern reference works as a solar deity or a being connected with light. The evidence for this identification is limited, however. U…
Te Tuna
Te Tuna is a name associated with powerful eel figures in Polynesian mythology, especially traditions from Aotearoa New Zealand and Samoa. The expression is not always the name of one universally defined being. In Māori,…
Tiki
Tiki is a name and image associated with several Polynesian traditions, especially the carved human or ancestor figure known in parts of eastern Polynesia. It does not identify one universally defined god or legendary be…