The World / New Zealand

New Zealand

The youngest child who was never born: Ruaumoko sleeps beneath the earth, and when he turns, the world ends.

Oceaniadrafted

Aotearoa contributes the archive's most geological apocalypse. Ruaumoko, the Maori god of earthquakes and volcanoes, is the youngest child of Papatuanuku, the earth mother, and Ranginui, the sky father — conceived but never born after the parents were separated, so he sleeps forever in the womb of the earth. When he turns over, the ground shakes; when he is fully roused, the end comes. In a land of fault lines and volcanic fields, the end of the world is simply the earth moving in its sleep.

Traditions

Polynesian Eschatology (Ruaumoko)

drafted

The end as geology: the youngest child of the earth mother, never born, sleeps in the womb of the world, and when he turns over the ground shakes — and will one day shake for the last time.

1 myth

Stories

Ruaumoko: the Child Who Sleeps Beneath the World

drafted

The youngest child, never born: conceived as the sky father and earth mother were separated, Ruaumoko sleeps in the womb of the earth with fire in his hands — and his turning is the end of the world.

linear · cosmic · fire · judgment