What do you know about ngā atua māori?

Kia Ora koutou,

Huia Whānau have been exploring Te Ao Māori this term, and have participated in a variety of learning experiences surrounding the creation story and ngā atua māori. We started the year with a bus-stop activity that included five sheets of A3 paper, each with their own question. We did this in groups and rotated around each paper, every two minutes. The purpose of this activity was to discover what we already knew about Te Ao Māori before embarking on our learning journey. The driving questions were as follows:

1. What do you know about whakapapa + pepeha?
2. What Te Reo Māori words do you know?
3. What do you know about the creation story?
4. What do you know about tikanga?
5. What do you know about Māori gods?

After identifying our prior knowledge, we took a look at the creation story and re-told it in our own words. Some people worked independently, while others chose to work collaboratively with their classmates. The outcomes varied in mediums, from google drawings to animations on google slides.

We identified some key atua from the creation story, and began to focus on them. Although we felt there were many important characters, including Papatuānuku, Ranginui, and Tāne-Mahuta, we decided to select six, specific atua for our learning: 

• Rongo-mā-tāne, who is the atua of peace and cultivate foods; 
• Māui, who is actually a demi-god and is known for being a trickster; 
• Ruaumoko, the baby of the atua and is still in Papatuānuku's puku, who is the atua of earthquakes and volcanoes; 
• Tumatauenga, who is the atua of man and war; 
• Tāwhirimātea, the blind atua who is guardian of winds and weather; and finally, 
• Tangaroa, kaitiaki of the seas, oceans, and everything that lives underwater. 

After selecting these important atua, we chose specific colours that we wanted to represent each atua. We started a whole-class collaborative art piece, that included each of our six atua, and Ranginui and Papatuanuku on either side of their sons. We had to work together to make sure our colours were the same for each atua, as well as their piupiu, patu, taiaha, korowai, etc. We decided Rongo would be yellow, Maui would be orange, Ruaumoko became purple, and Tu was easy to decide, he is red! We then had Tāwhiri and Tangaroa left and we wanted them to both be blue, so we decided that Tāwhiri would be a light blue because he's our atua of winds, and we then made Tangaroa dark blue because he's our kaitiaki of the ocean. This was a fun activity, and now that we're finished, our collaborative art looks amazing on our classroom wall. It's a true reflection of collaboration and team work.

Finally, we have learnt a waiata to support our learning and understanding. We had the different coloured atua lined up, which made it easier for us to remember who was next in the song. We also had the names, which were also colour-coded, lined up on the board to support us. Our waiata plays along to the same tune as the song "If you're happy and you know it". Each atua has their own action, for example, Rongo-mā-tāne is paki paki - because he's our yellow, happy atua - so we paki paki, or clap, when we sing about him.

We would really like some feedback on our mahi, and we have a few questions for you to think about. What did you already know about ngā atua māori before reading this post? Is there anything you have learnt or found really interesting after reading about our mahi? After reading about our learning in Huia Whānau, which atua do you feel most aligns with yourself, and how you are feeling right now, today?