Running notes from reread:

—Paré and Hutu: I suppose that I am in my Christo-phobic phase where I am forever mouthing off about those terrible people, right; however, it seems to me like this is a much more beautiful and loving story of death and resurrection than, say, Jesus & Lazarus, you know…. (Or Jesus, and…. Jesus? “There’s nobody like Jesus!”)…. True love isn’t about limiting one’s sexual expression; it’s about doing good to the beloved, you know.

—Rangi and Papatua, or the Heavens and the Earth:
God-names used—

Rangi: god of the Heavens
Papatua: goddess of the Earth
And their children—

Tu: god of war
Tawhiri: god of winds
Tané: god of light and forests

Incidentally, there is a bit of anti-witchcraft folklore, (a witch who hates love! A woman who loves…. hate! 😸), even in this presumably (and plausibly) pre-Christian folklore, even, kinda romantic, or at least kinda, filial/family-y, right. It is largely about the relationship between Tané, the god of light (“and forests”?), and the strongest of the younger gods, with his father, Rangi, the god of Heaven, whom his son first punishes/banishes, and then later, cares for, right.

I don’t know; it is kinda the story about “family values”, almost: people should have kids, stop having sexy times, get a little crusty, right; like, the opposite of the first story…. The production and care for offspring—you know, compensating for death, basically—isn’t an easy problem for any society; but yeah: I’m not confident it was ideally solved, in primordial times, right.

—Huia, or the Tale of the Fishing Net: Even in old times there were governments and economies and chiefs; although the chiefs received gifts from the fairies, to benefit the people.

—Maui, the Hercules of the Pacific:
Deity-names used—

Hiné, goddess of death
Mahuika, the god of fire

I was a Christian when I first bought and read this book, and although most of the tales didn’t make really any impression on me the way that I wanted them to, this story made at least a superficial ripple with me, since I liked the explicit pairing in the title of the man native to Europe and the man native to the Pacific, and possibly also those few lines in the poem that mention the appearance of the traditional inhabitants of that part of the world: and although I hadn’t explicitly decided that it was “all about” ethnicity, I nevertheless knew that that was ~some~ part of it anyway, (as elusive as much of the rest of it for the sorta historical-philosophical training of a Dharmo-Christian, you know); I knew that there was more than one ethnicity, so to speak…. That books didn’t just appear in the British Museum, you know, by mystic materialization from the Greco-British Realm of Pure Ideas, right: the cross-cultural (Greek AND British!!!) Source of All, right…. I knew that books had ethnicities, in a way…. But without some sort of interest of individualized, gendered, and natural reality (which (white, especially) Anglo-Asian scholarship does NOT always give you), there’s no way to “crack the nut”, so to speak, of Native lore….

And now it’s like: that’s not a bug; that's a feature. 👌

But yeah: it’s a very dark and enigmatic tale of family and inheritance…. To put it in a less veiled way, family conflict. You can’t ignore your family—even your simple, stupid, neglectful, hostile, biological family, right…. And sometimes you also can’t avoid fighting them, basically….

…. And Asian culture is different from Native culture, you know. Sometimes paleface gets terribly enamored of Asian culture, and gets the bright idea that if Western Civilization is going to repair the barricades and hold the line, it’ll have to ally with Eastern Civilization…. “Asia”, but not ALL of “Asia”, obviously, lol—basically, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese upper-class men, and the cultures that they dominate, more or less…. Asian never caught the colony bug, really, but they can have quite a ‘colonial’ conception of gender: like they have ‘colonial’ gender, they just never felt the compulsion to murder other continents, right…. Their own was so big, as it was no?

…. The rest of the Maui story: I’m having a very difficult New Moon—just a lot of things, things are getting resolved, but I feel tired and stressed, and the whole world feels dirty, right…. Just all things shitting in the same hole together, lol….

But yeah, it won’t be as pretty as if I’d finished this part at another time, but it is a nice story, right. Maui, the Hero-God of Hawaii and New Zealand, a mighty god, commands the spirits to do his will, that he may give boons to the tribe, and set the forces of nature aright, and do all sorts of mighty works of bravery…. Until finally he is destroyed by the Force that is Death/Goddess/Other, right: in that last sense, it is a story of the previous age, the age of the men-tribes, but I don’t know—it is still good for “man” to fight with the gods who would do him ill, and think it is not his destiny or befitting his dignity, to die, to suffer, to be limited, right….

~Yeah, and this is kinda an ugly time, this New Moon during which I’m writing this segment of it—not unusually, nothing a reporter would find titillating, basically—“oh, that’s just normal suffering; I only like the really, perverse, stuff, right”—and mostly it is not personal karma, it is a general cycle of energy; perhaps I am not so trained and powerful to be immune to general karma or whatever—in fact, there may be normal-minimal negative karma with the moron-atheist-normies, just the pointless, lazy, useless rage, right: because when I was a Christian it was like, “that is not how you do Liberalism”—and sometimes they were right and I was wrong…. But it is kinda afflicting to hear from these people; I have to grow immune to it…. But they always choose the lazy-restless-useless-apathy-rage, you know: it’s irritating. Atheists insults cultures, just in general, all but their own: lazy insults, you know: that involve no knowledge, at all, of the cultures, or the issues involved…. I wonder where they got that from? Right? And it’s like, They want to hate their parents, and destroy the “ideology of the parents”—but just in general, in the human race, right: harm comes from their own parents, but they must not spare the Other Tribes from the general holocaust of ideologies and cultures, right—that would not show loyalty to the tribe; it would make them nervous…. Certainly their own new, individual culture is best: that is what everyone says about the new, atheist culture, right: it is wonderful passive, and no sudden vengeful changes happen in the earth because of it: there could never be violence under a secular government; no disrupting change in the scientific world of atheism could ever happen, as all other cultures would be truth-bound to admit, except that they are the Other Tribes, or else the Parents, right…. Wonderfully passive, atheist civilization, the new culture right: and so mellow; such a sudden yet pleasant break from all that went before…. And Zombie Jesus and White Governments, you know: bless you, if you try to get them to take a peek inside their own dark, unexplored skulls, they just turn up the noise machines, right: Normies’ Norman Nettles’ Nasty Narwhals, no no no, religion! Parent bad! Other culture no good! Everything bad, nothing normal—yet!!!

But yeah…. Man must fight the gods, sometimes. Sometimes it’s a process, and it leaves a bruise…. If there were no negative hoomis, there wouldn’t be negative fairy, or gods charging into me, right—“man” would experience the revolutions of the heavens quite differently, one way or another…. And I encounter the un-brained hoomi, because I have not completed my training; it’s as simple as that, maybe…. You do not have to fight with wrath, nor accept every duel or deploy on every battlefield…. But it is a sort of battle in your head: what sort of god, are you….

…. (I’m harping but this is funnier); it’s like….
—Two points. Religion is over. Religion and myth are dead, except for religious fundamentalists, hiding away in monkey-town. 2. The new atheist culture would NEVER tell a story about alienation and fear, the way that religion did in the past. I think you, Grossly Overestimate, the small hiccup of the new cool people vs parents and the other tribes.
—Did you ever see the movie, “How To Train Your Dragon”?
—Hmm…. Yes, I concede defeat. I go now to perform samurai suicide. I may have been defeated in honest battle: but I shall reclaim my, honor! Hai! (bows)

…. You know, it’s like (and yes, I do have to have these conversations with myself, lol: because people should, Literally Be On Meds, LOL 😨🤣):

—The United States government, a secular organization, has lied and killed people. That’s literally a matter of public record. No controversy.
—You don’t understand—the point of discussion of ~~self-flattery~~! You’re breaking the rules! The rules of life!
—But—
—Normies’ Norman Nettles’ Nasty Narwhals’ Nectarine’s Neckties….

~You know: like there’s no emotional strength, to have an actual fucking…. Conversation. The old aristocrats weren’t always better, at that, although they masked their illnesses behind Latinate phraseology, but…. Yeah, the New Proles can be a lot, right….

But yeah: I’m done. I’ll go back to the stories.

…. —Hinemoa, or the Beautiful Māori Maiden of Rotorua: A sweet and classic love story of the Native race.

—Sina and Tuna the Eel god, or The Origin of the Coco-Nut Tree:
Other names of gods: Tangaroa, and Rongo: associated with coco-nut tree

On the one hand, yeah: this is a much more healthy and safe version of the Myth of the Dying God than the story of Jesus: although the director of that play was not the persecuted god Christ, right—perhaps it was Pilate, no?…. They made him a saint: what do you do with that; well he was God, according to Paul, right—God was the one who killed Jesus…. But yeah, I am kinda excited with jealousy and sincere flattery that some people got to spend the Aeon the Dying God hearing about a god who died to stop a storm from destroying his girl, right….

But yeah: in the new Aeon, sacrifice is no longer really beneficial. It is a way things can be, but its time is passed, and it isn’t the best sort of good…. It is a sort of mystery, but to actually go through with it—one struggles to imagine how it could NOT be primitive, even though the Aeons are cyclical, right…. But to actually go through with it: the game is over, the power spent, no?….

Although the sacred plant lore is nice, yeah. It’s not like one of the explanations of one of our scientists, right. “Coconuts are brown because coconuts are brown because chemical N4G23Q; therefore coconuts are brown. Keep moving: nothing to see here….”

The Māori story actually explains what the plant means to them, and implicitly—although more technical lore would be helpful here—the uses it would have in magic, right: that the coconut is a plant of love, and of good-will, right….

…. The Twins, or the Double Star in Scorpio: A story about ‘woman as the enemy of all man-and-woman-kind’, you know: like a gossip’s stock of “bad mother” stories, or a “wicked step-mother” fairy tale…. Also a romanticism-of-death story, like “The Little Match Girl”. Also a general societal worrying-aloud thing about how, even though the male in the couple would be the one in the tribal army, the “alcoholic”-codependent pairing might not work out, “in the right way”, you know. Not a pretty story, right.

…. Tereté, the Boy in the Moon: Although the Māori moon-deity isn’t mentioned, he is actually a god; sometimes moon deities are male, as the moon is seen to embody certain masc-y traits such as measurement (for cultures with a lunar calendar), (although most moon deities are female). Thus, the moon-boy going to moon-land would be on a journey towards his higher self, much to the chagrin of this earth-bound sister, although his memory his honored by warriors, among others. The story ends with the comment, “Whether little Tereté is happy we cannot tell.”

…. Rata’s Revenge, the Tale of the First Greenstone Axe:

god names:
Moko-moko, the lizard-god
The Whetstone-maiden
Hakuturi, wood-spirits
Ponaturi, sun-land fairies, who can only be in darkness

Miscellaneous:
Tohunga = priest
green jade

~Father-son story; revenge story. (Killing father’s killers.) Cautionary tale about ignoring the needs of animal helpers.

…. Matariki, or the Little Eyes (the Pleiades): A story of the gods, and the stars.

…. Rua and Toka, a tale of the deep sea:
God names used:

Tangaroa, the ocean god
Ponaturi, now described as “a race of sea-fairies and goblins, to whom sunlight is fatal”

A father takes revenge upon a god for his son’s death, and returns him to the living.

I realize these tales must have been taken down by one of those first-generation feminists, so crusty with racism as to be like a creature from outer space, right—I get the paleface is pernicious and everything, right—but it’s like…. After awhile it does kinda strike you, right: just how many of these stories are basically about men, and in which females are essentially either absent or secondary, you know.