MYTHOLOGY (noun.)
1. a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
2. the study of myths
─ IN WHICH THE ADMINS GIVE YOU INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THE MANY BELIEFS OF MULTIPLE MMYTHOLOGIES
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THE ORIGIN OF MANKIND
Tuli, the bird messenger of Tangaloa, flew down to earth with a creeping vine to clothe the bare land and provide shade. At first the vine spread; then it withered and decomposed and swarmed with a shapeless moving mass of maggots. Tangaloa took these and fashioned them into human shape. He straightened them out and moulded hands, legs and features. He gave each a heart and a soul and they came alive. This type of myth in which man appeared by a kind of primitive evolution, sometimes aided by a deity, was confined to the western Polynesians. In other islands to the east, it was believed that man came into being by a continuation of the process of creation, which had begun with Atea and Papa. The god Tane was most often considered to be the actual generative agent who impregnated a woman he formed from earth.
The unions between the gods and human beings which took place long ago in the mythological past tended to blur the line between the divine and human ancestors in the genealogy of men. Many men also counted amongst their ancestors the children of such union, the demi-gods and heroes whose adventures were performed when the world was young and the journey could still be made between the world of the living and the spirit lands, aided by the power of their divine relatives. Their deeds were eulogised in narrative, drama, poetry and song and the names of some were known almost more widely than those of the gods.
The need of every man of status for a famous ancestor resulted in the absorption of these characters into the genealogies of the ruling Polynesian families, and when more than one of them appeared in the same genealogy, brought them also into relationship with each other.
