Hine-nui-te-pō

Hine-nui-te-pō (Great woman of night) is a goddess of night and death, and the ruler of the underworld. She is a daughter of Tāne. She fled to the underworld because she discovered that Tāne, whom she had married, was also her father. Red color of sunset coming from her.

All of the children of Rangi and Papa were male. It was Tāne who first felt the need for a wife and began to look for a companion. His mother showed him how to make a female form from red earth. Then Tāne breathed life into Hine-ahuone, the earth-formed-maid, and mated with her. Their child was Hine-ata-uira, maid-of-the-flashing-dawn (alias Hine-tītama), and Tāne took her to wife.

One day, while Tāne was away, Hine-ata-uira began to wonder who her father was. She was disgusted and ashamed when she heard that her husband was also her father, and she ran away. When Tāne came back he was told that she had run off to the spirit-world, and he quickly followed after. But he was stopped from entering by Hine herself, in her new role as goddess of the underworld. “Go back, Tāne”, she said to him, “and raise our children. Let me remain here to gather them in.” So Tāne came back to the upper world, while Hine stayed below, waiting only for Māui to bring death into the world, and begin the never-ending procession of mortals to her realm.

Māui attempted to make mankind immortal by crawling through her body while she slept, but the fantail’s laughter woke her and she crushed him with her vagina; Māui was the first man to die.

Hine-nui-te-pō created insects, including the “bush giant dragonfly” which has a length of 85mm and wing span of 140mm. (Maybe Kimo has a deal with her, and the checkpoints are dragonfly shrines)

“The red flashing in the western sky comes from her,” says the father. “Her body is like a human being, but her eyes are Pounamu, her hair sea-kelp, and her mouth is like a barracouta’s mouth.”

Hine Legends

http://www.dhushara.com/book/tane/redemp/redemp.htm

Hine-titama

My mother was formed from Papatuanuku by the hands of Tāne. I was formed in the womb of my mother when Tāne entered her, combining both male and female elements. But I did not know at first that Tāne was my father. I was their firstborn, named Hine-titama, being the Dawn, and being therefore the daughter who bound earthly night to earthly day. I later became the wife of Tāne, not knowing that he was my father, and we parented several daughters.

One day I asked Tāne who my father was. He would not answer me directly saying only, “Put your question to the posts of the house.” lt was then that I knew that Tāne, my husband, was also my father. I was bone of his bone and yet I was wife to him. I was angry and shamed because of this, and decided that I could not continue either to be wife to Tāne or earthly mother to our children.

So I left the world of light, telling Tāne not to follow me. I told him to remain with our children and to care for them in the world of light. ” I will go on to the dark world,” I said, “where I will welcome our children when their earthly life is ended. I will go in order to prepare an after life for them, where once again I can be a loving mother. I will be known from now on as Hine-nui-te-Pō.”

Hine-nui-te-Pō

It was because of shame that I left the world of light for the dark world and promised to await my children and their descendants to welcome them here in Rarohenga. Now the time is near.

Now, at last, this Māui comes towards me, coming in the hope that he will conquer me, and that the children of hard-won light will never know death.

When I have defeated Māui, I will thereafter welcome my descendants in death. But I do not cause death, and did not ordain it. Human death was ordained when human life was ordained. And we – my father-husband Tāne; Taranga who gave special birth to Māui; Makea-tutara, speaker of the tohi rites; Māui-potiki, and I, Hine-nui-te-Pō, are merely the instruments, the practicalities, and the sequence of death. See Māui now. In the world of light he has achieved all he can achieve. He comes now to challenge me in the world of no-light, seeking to achieve what cannot be achieved. To defeat death he will need to gain living entry to my womb, and living exit, but this he cannot do. Now he stands at the edge of light, exuberant, changing from one disguise to another while the little birds watch, excited and trembling. My vagina, where he must enter, is set with teeth of obsidian, and is a gateway through which only those who have already achieved death may freely pass.

He will attempt to enter in life, hoping that I am asleep, but he will be cut in two, meeting his death. Only then can he be made welcome.

Come Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga. Your bird companions chuckle and flutter at the strange sight of you, but they are not your undoing. There is one purpose only for these obsidian teeth. In this your last journey, you will give your final gift to those of earth, the gift not of immortality, but of homecoming, following death. Come survivor of seas, lengthener of day, obtainer of fire, fisher of land, keeper of the magical jawbone of Muriranga-whenua.

Death is yours, your chosen, death is yours. Your deeds will be spoken of in the world of light, but you will never be seen there again.

I will wait at this side of death for those who follow, because I am the mother who welcomes and cares for those children whose earthly life has ended.

http://daytips.com/hine-nui-te-po-great-lady-of-the-night/

According to Māori mythology, you can see her green eyes staring at you in the night when your time to die has come.

Hine-Nui-Te-Pō, the goddess of death and decay, is black as the darkness of the earth. A dying person is said to creep into her womb.

Gaping Entrance to the Underworld