Whaitiri
Encyclopedia
In Māori mythology
, Whaitiri is a female deity, a personification of thunder
, and the grandmother of Tāwhaki
and Karihi
. Whaitiri is the granddaughter of Te Kanapu, and the great-granddaughter of Te Uira, both of whom are personified forms of lightning
(Reed 1963:158). In Maori mythology, there is also a male deity of thunder, Tawhirimatea
.
. When she hears of a mortal named Kaitangata
(man
-eater), she is certain he will make a fine husband for her. She comes down to earth
and marries him, but is disappointed to learn that he is a gentle person, nothing like his name suggests. Whaitiri kills her favourite slave, Anonokia, takes out her heart
and liver
, and offers them to Kaitangata as a sign of her affection. He is horrified at the grisly offering (Reed 1963:158-159).
Kaitangata is a hard worker, spending a lot of time fish
ing to feed his family. Unfortunately, he has never learned how to make hooks with a barb, and so most of his fish escape. Whaitiri gives him a barbed hook, and he catches a groper, which she offers to the gods. Whaitiri quickly tires of a diet of fish, so when her husband is away fishing, she takes a net and catches two of her husband's relatives, Tupeke-ti and Tupeke-ta. When Kaitangata returns, she asks him to perform the incantations that are used when human flesh is offered to the gods. He does not know the chants, so she tries to perform them herself, not willing to confess that she is ignorant of the correct words to use. She mumbles nonsense words, before cooking the bodies, cutting them up and gorging herself on the flesh, to the disgust of the villagers. Only the bone
s are left (Reed 1963:158-9).
Later, Kaitangata uses the bones to make barbed hooks, and goes fishing. He catches groper, and gives them to Whaitiri. He does not tell her that he used hooks made from the bones of Tupeke-ti and Tupeke-ta. She eats the fish, and because the fish is infused with the tapu (sacredness) from the bodies of the two men, Whaitiri gradually begins to go blind. At first she is mystified at the reason for this, but eventually she is visited by a woman from the underworld who tells her what has happened (Reed 1963:159).
is like the wind
, and her heart is as cold as snow
. On another occasion, she is ashamed when Kaitangata complains that their children are dirty. She explains to her husband that she is unable to wash her children because she is a sacred being from the heaven
s, and she tells him for the first time that her name
is thunder. She prepares to return to her true home in the heavens, and foretells that her children will follow her one day. She departs in a cloud
, leaving her children, one of whom is Hemā
(Reed 1963:159-160).
. At the foot of the ascent they find their grandmother, Whaitiri, now blind, who sits continually counting the tubers of sweet potato
or taro
that are her only food. The brothers tease her by snatching them away, one by one, and upsetting her count. Eventually, they reveal themselves to her and restore her sight. In return, she gives them advice about how best to make the climb into the sky. Karihi tries first, but makes the error of climbing up the aka taepa, or hanging vine. He is blown violently around by the winds of heaven, and falls to his death. Tāwhaki climbs by the aka matua, or parent vine
, recites the right incantations, and reaches the highest of the 10 heavens. There he learns many spells from Tama-i-waho, and marries a woman named Hāpai, or as others say, Maikuku-makaka. They have a son, and according to some versions of the story it is this child who is named Wahieroa
(Biggs 1966:450).
Maori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...
, Whaitiri is a female deity, a personification of thunder
Thunder
Thunder is the sound made by lightning. Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, thunder can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble . The sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within...
, and the grandmother of Tāwhaki
Tāwhaki
In Māori mythology, Tāwhaki is a semi-supernatural being associated with lightning and thunder.-Genealogy:The genealogy of Tāwhaki varies somewhat in different accounts. In general, Tāwhaki is a grandson of Whaitiri, a cannibalistic goddess who marries the mortal Kaitangata , thinking that he...
and Karihi
Karihi
In Māori mythology, Karihi is a brother or cousin of TāwhakiIn one story, Hema was killed by the Ponaturi, and Karihi, with his mother and his brother Tāwhaki, killed them all but two in revenge. They tricked the Ponaturi into entering a house, and then locked them in, claiming there was still time...
. Whaitiri is the granddaughter of Te Kanapu, and the great-granddaughter of Te Uira, both of whom are personified forms of lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
(Reed 1963:158). In Maori mythology, there is also a male deity of thunder, Tawhirimatea
Tawhirimatea
In Māori mythology, Tāwhirimātea is the god of weather, including thunder and lightning, wind, clouds and storms. He is a son of Papatūānuku and Ranginui...
.
Marries Kaitangata
Whaitiri is a fearsome figure, fond of cannibalismCannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
. When she hears of a mortal named Kaitangata
Kaitangata
Kaitangata can mean the following:*Kaitangata, New Zealand, a small town near the coast of South Otago in New Zealand*Kaitangata , a character in Māori mythology...
(man
Man
The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...
-eater), she is certain he will make a fine husband for her. She comes down to earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and marries him, but is disappointed to learn that he is a gentle person, nothing like his name suggests. Whaitiri kills her favourite slave, Anonokia, takes out her heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
and liver
Liver
The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
, and offers them to Kaitangata as a sign of her affection. He is horrified at the grisly offering (Reed 1963:158-159).
Kaitangata is a hard worker, spending a lot of time fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
ing to feed his family. Unfortunately, he has never learned how to make hooks with a barb, and so most of his fish escape. Whaitiri gives him a barbed hook, and he catches a groper, which she offers to the gods. Whaitiri quickly tires of a diet of fish, so when her husband is away fishing, she takes a net and catches two of her husband's relatives, Tupeke-ti and Tupeke-ta. When Kaitangata returns, she asks him to perform the incantations that are used when human flesh is offered to the gods. He does not know the chants, so she tries to perform them herself, not willing to confess that she is ignorant of the correct words to use. She mumbles nonsense words, before cooking the bodies, cutting them up and gorging herself on the flesh, to the disgust of the villagers. Only the bone
Bone
Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...
s are left (Reed 1963:158-9).
Later, Kaitangata uses the bones to make barbed hooks, and goes fishing. He catches groper, and gives them to Whaitiri. He does not tell her that he used hooks made from the bones of Tupeke-ti and Tupeke-ta. She eats the fish, and because the fish is infused with the tapu (sacredness) from the bodies of the two men, Whaitiri gradually begins to go blind. At first she is mystified at the reason for this, but eventually she is visited by a woman from the underworld who tells her what has happened (Reed 1963:159).
Returns to the sky
One day, Whaitiri overhears her husband describe her to two strangers. She is offended when she hears him say that his wife's skinSkin
-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...
is like the wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
, and her heart is as cold as snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
. On another occasion, she is ashamed when Kaitangata complains that their children are dirty. She explains to her husband that she is unable to wash her children because she is a sacred being from the heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
s, and she tells him for the first time that her name
Name
A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name...
is thunder. She prepares to return to her true home in the heavens, and foretells that her children will follow her one day. She departs in a cloud
Cloud
A cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. They are also known as aerosols. Clouds in Earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology...
, leaving her children, one of whom is Hemā
Hema (mythology)
-Māori:In Māori mythology, hema is a son of Whaitiri and Kaitangata and the father of Tāwhaki and Karihi. In North Island stories, he was killed by the Ponaturi, evil creatures who live by day in the water. Tāwhaki, Karihi and their mother trick the Ponaturi into entering a house, and then locked...
(Reed 1963:159-160).
Found by her grandsons
This is fulfilled when Tāwhaki and Karihi, Hemā's sons, set off to climb up to the skySky
The sky is the part of the atmosphere or outer space visible from the surface of any astronomical object. It is difficult to define precisely for several reasons. During daylight, the sky of Earth has the appearance of a pale blue surface because the air scatters the sunlight. The sky is sometimes...
. At the foot of the ascent they find their grandmother, Whaitiri, now blind, who sits continually counting the tubers of sweet potato
Sweet potato
The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...
or taro
Taro
Taro is a common name for the corms and tubers of several plants in the family Araceae . Of these, Colocasia esculenta is the most widely cultivated, and is the subject of this article. More specifically, this article describes the 'dasheen' form of taro; another variety is called eddoe.Taro is...
that are her only food. The brothers tease her by snatching them away, one by one, and upsetting her count. Eventually, they reveal themselves to her and restore her sight. In return, she gives them advice about how best to make the climb into the sky. Karihi tries first, but makes the error of climbing up the aka taepa, or hanging vine. He is blown violently around by the winds of heaven, and falls to his death. Tāwhaki climbs by the aka matua, or parent vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
, recites the right incantations, and reaches the highest of the 10 heavens. There he learns many spells from Tama-i-waho, and marries a woman named Hāpai, or as others say, Maikuku-makaka. They have a son, and according to some versions of the story it is this child who is named Wahieroa
Wahieroa
In Māori mythology, Wahieroa is a son of Tāwhaki, and father of Rātā.Tāwhaki was attacked and left for dead by two of his brothers-in-law, jealous that their wives preferred the handsome Tāwhaki to them. He was nursed back to health by his wife Hinepiripiri. She helped him back to their house, and...
(Biggs 1966:450).
Names and epithets
- Waitiri (thunder, thundering water, dialectal)
- Whatitiri (thunder)
- Whaitiri-mātakataka (crashing thunder)
- Waitiri Station, a large Central Otago New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
high country ranchRanchA ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
. Named after the thundering waters of the Kawarau RiverKawarau RiverKawarau River drains Lake Wakatipu, in northwestern Otago, New Zealand. The river flows generally eastwards for about 60 km and passes through the steep Kawarau Gorge until it joins Lake Dunstan near Cromwell. The Shotover River enters it from the north; the Nevis River enters it from the south...
. Waitiri Station is the major ranch of the Kawarau Gorge and runs from the Bungy Bridge to the Roaring Meg on SH6. It is a merino sheep station and is run in conjunction with Eastburn Station. - Waitiri Run (Citroen Rapids) A Grade IV at less than 11000 cuft/s and Grade V over 11000 cuft/s. Length 2 miles (3 km) BIG water, technically simple but intimidating. Waitiri Station provides put and exit access.