World-Heaving Octopus
Kiribati · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
The octopus-god of the Tungaru cosmogony, brother of Riiki and of Nareau the Younger. His land-raising and his sacrificed legs are core attested motifs. Treated as deity; immortal.
Parentage
- parent: The First Rock
- parent: Nei Teukez the Primal Mother
Domains
- raising of the land
- octopuses
- sea floor
- creation
Powers
- lifts the islands, beaches and rocks from the sea-floor
- gives up the legs that strengthen the sky-eel
- uses his eight octopus-arms to lift islands, beaches and rocks
Relations
- sibling: Sky-Lifting EelThe octopus and the eel, fellow children of Na Atibu and Nei Teukez and co-workers in the making of the world.Grimble, Arthur. Tungaru Traditions (ed. Maude, 1989), Na Kika and Riiki both children of the primal pair (secondary)
- sibling: World-MakerA child of Na Atibu, hence brother of Nareau the Younger, in whose ordering of the world he is a chief helper.Grimble, Arthur. Tungaru Traditions (ed. Maude, 1989), genealogy of the children of Na Atibu (secondary)
- sibling: Te Ikawai the Eldest
Sources
- Na Kika ('the Octopus') is a son of Na Atibu and Nei Teukez in Gilbertese creation, the many-armed god who heaves the land up from the sea-floor to form the islands and whose legs, 'the essence of procreation,' are fed to the sky-lifting eel Riiki.: Grimble, Arthur. Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands (ed. H.E. Maude, 1989) (secondary); Grimble, Arthur. 'Myths from the Gilbert Islands' (Folklore, vol. 33, 1922) (secondary)