World-Maker
Kiribati · demigod · primordial · Recorded classification
The active world-shaper of Kiribati cosmogony, distinct from Nareau the Elder; foregrounded as a creator/culture-hero figure and entered as demigod per the brief (son of the primal being). Riiki the sky-lifting eel and the tree Kai-n-tiku-aba are core attested motifs.
Parentage
- parent: The First Rock
Domains
- ordering of the world
Powers
- sets the eel Riiki to prise apart sky and earth
- raises the tree from which people grow
Relations
- sibling: Sky-Lifting EelRiiki the sky-lifting eel is a child of Na Atibu, hence brother of Nareau the Younger.Grimble, Tungaru Traditions, ed. Maude (1989) (secondary)
- sibling: World-Heaving OctopusNa Kika the octopus is a child of Na Atibu, hence brother of Nareau the Younger.Grimble, Tungaru Traditions, ed. Maude (1989) (secondary)
- enemy: ThundererNareau the Younger provokes the thunder-god Tabuariki to wrestle and breaks his arm.Grimble, Tungaru Traditions, ed. Maude (1989) (secondary)
Sources
- Nareau the Younger, son of Na Atibu, completes the creation of the human world: he has the eel Riiki lift the sky, fashions sun, moon and islands from his father's body, and raises the ancestral tree Kai-n-tiku-aba from which people grew.: Grimble, Arthur. 'Myths from the Gilbert Islands' (Folklore, 1922) (secondary); Grimble, Arthur. Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands (ed. H.E. Maude, 1989) (secondary)