Hine-nui-te-pō

In Māori pūrākau Hine-nui-te-pō begins life as Hine-tītama, daughter of Tāne and Hine-ahu-one. After discovering the familial relationship between herself and Tāne (she learning that Tāne was both husband and father), Hine-tītama withdrew from the world of the living and descended into the underworld, becoming Hine-nui-te-pō, the atua of night and guardian of Rarohenga who receives human souls.

Sources do not offer a single consistent portrait; representations vary by narrative. In some fragmentary passages she is described performing a beak-like transformation. In the Māui narrative one frequently cited account describes a lethal anatomical detail—obsidian teeth—used in that episode. These features appear as story-specific or symbolic motifs rather than as a universally agreed physical description across traditions.

Hine-nui-te-pō's primary role is custodial: she receives and shepherds human wairua into the first level of Rarohenga and prepares them for the next stage of their journey. In mythic narrative she upholds the finality of death—most famously in the Māui episode, where Māui attempts to enter her to obtain immortality for humankind and is killed when she awakens and crushes him, an action that functions to preserve human mortality in the story tradition.