{"collection":"Sacred Texts -- Pacific Islander Religions","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_pac_om_om06_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_pac_om_om06_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_pac_om_om06_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/pac/om/om06.htm","summary":"This is an academic study in comparative mythology and ethnology, examining the cosmogonic (origin) myths of Polynesian peoples. The author's central argument is that Polynesian creation myths are not a uniform system, as commonly assumed, but fall into two distinct types: a genealogical/evolutionary type, in which the cosmos gradually self-differentiates from a primordial void through a succession of personified stages, and a creationist type, in which a deity actively makes the world. The text focuses primarily on the genealogical type, drawing detailed examples from New Zealand M\u0101ori traditions \u2014 including elaborate genealogies descending from \"The Void\" through stages of night, dawn, and space to the progenitor pair of Sky Father (Rangi) and Earth Mother (Papa) \u2014 and noting close parallels in Marquesan myth. A distinctive and recurring claim is that the philosophical sophistication of these myths is striking for a culture at this stage of material development, with the author explicitly comparing them to early Greek and Hindu cosmogony and to Scandinavian mythology. The author further argues, based on fragmentary Moriori evidence, that the evolutionary element is likely a later theological development layered onto a simpler, older belief centered on Rangi and Papa without elaborate ancestral prehistory. The work is ultimately concerned with disentangling the composite, historically layered character of Polynesian mythology rather than treating it as a monolithic tradition.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Oceanic Mythology: Part I. Polynesia: Chapter I. Myths of...","tradition":"Sacred Texts -- Pacific Islander Religions","translated_text":null,"word_count":12232}