Sky-Lifting Eel

The sky-lifting eel of the Tungaru cosmogony. Already named in the corpus within Nareau the Younger's 'raise-the-sky' faculty; here given his own entry, wired as a child of the registered Na Atibu and sibling of Nareau the Younger and of Na Kika. Identified with the Milky Way (Na Iabu). Treated as deity; immortal (set in the sky, not slain).

Parentage

• The First Rock
• Nei Teukez the Primal Mother

Domains

• separation of sky and earth
• eels
• milky way

Powers

• prises the sky-roof off the earth
• is roused to strength by Na Kika's severed legs
• is set in the heavens as the Milky Way

Epithets

• Na Iabu

Relations

• sibling: World-Heaving Octopus
• sibling: World-Maker

Sources

• Grimble, Arthur. Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands (ed. H.E. Maude, 1989)
• Grimble, Arthur. 'Myths from the Gilbert Islands' (Folklore, vol. 33, 1922)