Tiki

Marquesan · deity · mythic · deity

Tiki is the first man and ancestor of mankind in the Marquesas — the first figure named in the ~90-generation genealogies of Hiva, born of 'Atea and One-u'i (the sand-woman) in the pu'e tradition. With his wife Hina (Hina-tu-na-one) he gave rise to the first Marquesans, whose descendants became the founding ancestors of each mata'eina'a (tribe). In a widespread variant of the Tiki cycle (Marquesan Legends, 1930) he forms a woman out of sand and takes her to wife — the 'sand-woman tale,' the pan-Polynesian first-man/sand-woman motif (parallel to Maori Tane and Hine-ahu-one). As 'ancestor of men' he taught the Marquesans most facets of their traditional culture; he is also a trickster of the legend-cycle. The word tiki names both the first man and the carved anthropomorphic images of deified ancestors and gods central to Marquesan material culture.

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