OCEANIC MYTHOLOGY

Oceanic Mythology Texts

List of Water Deities

POLYNESIAN

FIJIAN

HAWAIIAN

MĀORI

  • Ikatere, a fish god, the father of all the sea creatures including mermaids.
  • Kiwa, a guardian of the sea.
  • Rongomai, a whale god.
  • Ruahine, a eel god.
  • Taniwha, deities or monsters (often take forms resembling dragons).
  • Tangaroa, god of the sea.
  • Tawhirimātea, god of the weather, rain, storms and wind
  • Tinirau, a guardian of the sea.
  • Tohora (Maori name for southern right whales), the great whale who saved legendary hero Paikea, famously known as the Whale Rider, (also the Maori name for humpback whales) from drowning and carried him to land. This led to the creation of New Zealand.

SAMOAN [OTHER ISLAND NATIONS]

AUSTRALIA

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF OCEANIA

‘Walk Together with Courage’, reminded us of the fundamental importance of truth in our spiritual lives and in the life of our society”. “The recognition of our personal and social sin and of the damage we have done, precedes and opens the way to repentance, to efforts to make things right, to conversion and to commitment to change. The fact that our original peoples continue to be negative protagonists of so many socio-economic and health indicators has its roots in the historical injustices that must be recognized and addressed in order to bring lasting changes”.

Melanesians are the predominant and indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in a wide area from the Maluku Islands, East Nusa Tenggara and New Guinea to as far east as the islands of Vanuatu and Fiji. Most speak either one of the many languages of the Austronesian language family, especially ones in the Oceanic branch, or from one of the many unrelated families of Papuan languages. Other languages are the several creoles of the region, such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Solomon Islands Pijin, Bislama, Ambonese Malay and Papuan Malay.

Indigenous People: Oceania. The Peopling of Oceania The region of Oceania is comprised of Australia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. The original. First arrived from Southeast Asia about 60,000 years ago. –The various forms of social organization and isolation gave rise to a large diversity of languages and customs among indigenous groups in the region.

Balinese

Balinese, people of the island of Bali, Indonesia. Unlike most Indonesians, who practice Islam, the Balinese adhere to Hinduism, though their interpretation of it has been heavily influenced by the neighbouring Javanese culture. The Balinese language belongs to the Austronesian language family. In the early 21st century the Balinese numbered roughly three million. In the traditional Balinese village each extended family lives in its own compound, a cluster of buildings enclosed by an earthen or stone wall. The shady courtyard is usually divided into three sections, containing, respectively, the rice granaries and cattle sheds, the sleeping quarters and kitchen, and the house temple.

Wa

Wa, also called Lawa, Va, Hkawa, Kawa, or Kala, peoples of the upland areas of eastern Myanmar (Burma) and southwestern Yunnan province of China. They speak a variety of Austroasiatic languages related to those spoken by upland-dwelling groups in northern Thailand and Laos. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Wa numbered approximately 600,000 in Myanmar and 350,000 in China, where they have been designated an official minority. The Wa living in the remote upland areas of the China-Myanmar border once had a reputation for violence. Until after World War II, many of the Wa in this area were known to colonial officials as the “wild” Wa because of their practice of headhunting, which was associated with magical rites performed to ensure the fertility of the land.

One of the largest groups of indigenous peoples in Oceania are the Aboriginal Australians. These individuals belong to a number of different tribes, all of which have been subjected to exclusionary tactics by the government of Australia throughout history. Many islands throughout this region also have significant indigenous populations. In some cases, these islands have achieved independence from colonial powers and are now governed by the first peoples.

Chamorro

Chamorro, indigenous people of Guam. The ancestors of the Chamorro are thought to have come to the Mariana Islands from insular Southeast Asia (Indonesia and the Philippines) about 1600 BCE. It is estimated that in the early 17th century there were between 50,000 and 100,000 Chamorro in the Marianas, but the disease and violence wrought by the Spanish reduced the Chamorro population to about 1,000 by 1820. During this period the Spanish eliminated the Chamorro on Saipan and relocated the Chamorro from across the Marianas to Guam.

By the late 20th century there were about 50,600 Chamorro descendents on Guam whose ethnic background included a considerable admixture of Spanish, Filipino (based on Tagalog), and other strains. Their vernacular, called the Chamorro language, is not a Micronesian dialect but a distinct language with its own vocabulary and grammar. The Chamorro language is still used in many homes on Guam, though English is the island’s official language. The Chamorro are predominately Roman Catholic.

Aranda

Aranda, also spelled Arunta, Aboriginal tribe that originally occupied a region of 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km) in central Australia, along the upper Finke River and its tributaries. The Aranda were divided into five subtribes, which were marked by differences in dialect. In common with other Aborigines, the Aranda were greatly reduced in number during the first 70 years of contact with whites, but by the late 20th century they showed signs of holding their own and even of increasing in number. In 1982 the Aranda people at Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory were given freehold title to their land. The Arrernte (/ˈʌrəndə/) people, sometimes referred to as the Aranda, Arunta or Arrarnta, are a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the Arrernte lands, at Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and surrounding areas of the Central Australia region of the Northern Territory. 

The History of Oceania includes the history of Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other Pacific island nations. The prehistory of Oceania is divided into the prehistory of each of its major areas: Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Australasia, and these vary greatly as to when they were first inhabited by humans—from 70,000 years ago (Australasia) to 3,000 years ago (Polynesia). The Polynesian people are considered to be by linguistic, archaeological and human genetic ancestry a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people and tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan.

The Perishing Indigenous Tribe

A population that is shrugged off the list of recognized lives on the planet, Indigenous People are unique treasures of the earth. 

Moken tribe

The Moken tribe are semi-nomadic Austronesian people, who live in the Mergui Archipelago, a group of approximately 800 islands in the Andaman Sea that is claimed both by Burma and Thailand. Thought to have migrated to Thailand, Burma and Malaysia from Southern China approximately 4,000 years ago, the Moken have traditionally lived on hand-built wooden boats called kabang for most of the year, migrating in flotillas between islands according to factors such as subsistence needs, wind patterns, security concerns and disease. They have historically shunned material possessions and rejected outside technology.

The Moken ‘sea gypsies’ of the Andaman Sea have developed the unique ability to focus under water, in order to dive for food. The eyesight of Moken children is 50% more powerful than that of European children.


Published by ghwelker3

Glenn Welker is an author, researcher, and Website editor in the field of indigenous American studies. This noted and incredibly talented professor and webmaster offers his endless list of bookmarked links. You can click on anything here from American/Canadian and Latin American Indian languages, history and cultures to an abundance of information about computing information, the internet, and web development. Indigenous Peoples Literature Websites promote indigenous artwork, literature, and culture. Glenn Welker has also enjoyed a thirty year love of Music, particularly ethnomusicology, the music of many cultures.

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