Rehua

In Māori accounts Rehua is presented as a member of the ancestral sky-family: a son of Rangi (the sky father) and Papa (the earth mother) and an eldest brother to figures such as Tāne in some traditions. A Ngāi Tahu legend describes Rehua as first manifesting as lightning and later assuming a human shape when he travelled into the skies. In Tahitian tradition Rehua functions as a star-god and is described as producing certain star-groups (for example, the Twins and the Pleiades) and being the star of the New Year.

Sources do not provide a single detailed anthropomorphic portrait. A Ngāi Tahu tale reports Rehua first manifested as lightning and, when visited by his brother Tāne, appeared with birds in his hair that fed on his lice. Other accounts identify Rehua with particular bright stars — in Māori material he has been equated by some groups with Antares (noted for Tūhoe), and other sources list Betelgeuse or Sirius — indicating a prominent celestial, star-aspect rather than a fixed physical form.

Because he resides in the highest heaven (named in some versions Te Putahi-nui-o-Rehua in Rangi-tuarea, the tenth and highest heaven), Rehua is described as 'untouched by death' and is attributed the power to cure blindness, revive the dead, and heal any disease (Māori sources). In Tahitian material he is described as producing stellar groupings (the Twins and the Pleiades) and is considered the 'lord of the year' or the star of the New Year, linking him to calendrical and stellar production functions.