Papa

Earth-mother of Mangaia, wife of Vatea (Gill 1876). Gill gives her parents as Timatekore ('Nothing-more') and Tamaiti-ngava-ringavari ('the soft-bodied') of the lower Avaiki — cited here, not authored as stubs. The rule that she could not eat with her first-born underlies Rongo's precedence over Tangaroa.

Parentage

• father: TimatekoreWilliam Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 8 (primary)
• mother: Tamaiti-ngava-ringavariWilliam Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 8 (primary)

Children

• Rongo
• Tane
• Tangaroa
• Tangiia
• Tonga-iti

Children in alternative accounts

• Tangaroa: Vatea and Papa (Gill)William Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 10–11 (primary)

Variant accounts

• Local sun and moon accountGill records a Mangaian tribal account in which Tonga-iti is Papa’s husband rather than her son. Vatea and Tonga-iti dispute the paternity of an unnamed infant; its two halves become sun and moon. Gill says rival tribes rejected this genealogy.William Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 44–45 (primary)

Domains

• earth and foundation
• motherhood of the gods

Powers

• bear the great gods of Mangaia

Relations

• spouse: VateaWife of Vatea, the light-father.Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 9–12 (primary)
• mother of: TangaroaGill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 12–14 (primary)
• mother of: RongoGill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 12–14 (primary)
• mother of: TaneGill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 12–14 (primary)
• mother of: TangiiaGill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 12–14 (primary)
• mother of: Tonga-itiGill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 12–14 (primary)
• equated with: PapatūānukuReflex of the same ancestral Polynesian deity (*Papa), cognate across the island groups.Comparative Polynesian mythology: reflexes of the same ancestral deity across the island groups (E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, 1891; R. D. Craig, Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology, 1989) (secondary)
• father: TimatekoreWilliam Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 8 (primary)
• mother: Tamaiti-ngava-ringavariWilliam Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), pp. 8 (primary)

Sources

• Papa, the earth-mother, is the wife of Vatea and by him mother of the great gods of Mangaia (Rongo, Tangaroa, Tane, Tangiia, Tonga-iti).: William Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), Ch. I, pp. 9–14 (primary)