Taranga

In the narratives cited in the provided sources Taranga is the mother of Māui. These short accounts relate that Māui was born prematurely and that Taranga wrapped his body in her hair and cast him into the waves; sea-creatures then cared for him and hid him in kelp until a storm returned him (Wikipedia: Taranga; Māui materials; Italian retelling). Her name appears in Māui’s full traditional name, Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, literally linking him to his mother and situating him within whakapapa (libguide reference; Māui entries).

The supplied sources do not give a sustained physical description of Taranga. The only specific corporeal detail found in the available material is the narrative motif that she wrapped the premature infant Māui in her hair before casting him into the sea; an Italian retelling renders this as a lock of her long black hair, but that detail comes from a retelling rather than from primary Māori-language sources provided here and is therefore noted in source material as a variant/retelling (Wikipedia; Italian archive).

The materials provided do not attribute supernatural powers to Taranga herself. Her recorded actions in these sources are maternal and genealogical: she gives birth to Māui, conceals/wraps the infant in her hair, and abandons him to the sea where other agents rescue and raise him. The accounts present her as a parental figure within mythic genealogy rather than as an independently powerful supernatural actor (Wikipedia: Taranga; Māui sources; libguide).