Atea

Accounts vary by island. In a Marquesan tradition (as summarized by Tregear 1891) Atea "evolved himself" and brought forth Ono; Atea and Ono campaigned against night-forces (Tanaoa and Mutu-hei) and from that struggle came Atanua (dawn), whom Atea then took as spouse and by whom lesser gods and humankind were born. In a Tuamotu version (as summarized in the cited notes) Atea is the father of sons including Tahu and Tāne; after a sequence of famine, death, sex-reversal and conflict, Tāne kills Atea. Ratzel's reported account of New Zealand/Māori belief (as cited in the sources) presents Atea as "the universe" which floated in space and was divided by sex into Rangi and Papa (Heaven and Earth) — one recorded formulation rather than a universal Māori consensus.

The cited sources do not supply a consistent anthropomorphic description for Atea. Across the Marquesas, Tuamotu, and the Ratzel report for Māori thought, Atea is framed conceptually as a giver of light, a primordial actor, or as the universe itself rather than described in bodily detail. Some versions situate Atea in family relations (e.g., brother to Tāne in one Marquesan account; husband to Atanua in the Marquesas variant) or as cosmic substance (Ratzel's report of Atea as the universe), but no steady physical depiction is provided in the cited summaries.

In the Marquesas account (Tregear 1891 summarised), Atea is explicitly the "giver of light," is said to have evolved himself and to have brought forth Ono, and with Ono made war on Tanaoa (lord of darkness) and Mutu-hei (silence), defeating them and confining gods of night within boundaries. The same Marquesan sequence produces Atanua (dawn) and a lineage of lesser gods and humans. Ratzel's reported Māori account attributes cosmogenic scope to Atea by identifying Atea with the universe that is then divided into Rangi and Papa. In the Tuamotu narrative Atea functions as a progenitor whose household drama and conflict lead to his death at the hands of his son Tāne, showing that in some variants Atea can be overcome in divine succession narratives.