The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Te Po-whawha (The Moaning Night)

Hine-make-moe (The Daughter of Troubled Sleep)

Te Ata (The Dawn)

Te Au-tu-roa (The Abiding Day)

Te Ao-marama (The Bright Day)

Whai-tua (Space)

In space were evolved two existences without shape:

Maku (Moisture [a male])

Mahora-nui-a-rangi (Great Expanse of Heaven [a female])

From these sprang:

Rangi-potiki (The Heavens [a male])

Papa (Earth [a female])

Rangi-potiki and Papa were the parents of the gods.^[19]

From the void beyond all voids unfold the world-sustaining emanations, plantlike, mysterious. The tenth of the above series is night; the eighteenth, space or ether, the frame of the visible world; the nineteenth is the male-female polarity; the twentieth is the universe we see. Such a series suggests the depth beyond depth of the mystery of being. The levels correspond to the profundities sounded by the hero in his world-fathoming adventure; they number the spiritual strata known to the mind introverted in meditation. They represent the bottomlessness of the dark night of the soul.*

The Hebrew Kabbala represents the process of creation as a series of emanations (Hebrew: sephiroth) out of the I AM of The Great Face. The first is the head itself, in profile, and from this proceed “nine splendid lights.” The emanations are represented also as the branches of a cosmic tree, which is upside down, rooted in “the inscrutable height.” The world that we see is the reverse image of that tree.

According to the Indian Samkhya philosophers of the eighth century b.c., the void condenses into the element ether or space. From this air is precipitated. From air comes fire, from fire water, and from water the element earth. With each element evolves a sense-function capable of perceiving it: hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell respectively.^[20]

An amusing Chinese myth personifies these emanating elements as five venerable sages, who come stepping out of a ball of chaos, suspended in the void:

Before heaven and earth had become separated from each other, everything was a great ball of mist, called chaos. At that time, the spirits of the five elements took shape, and then developed into five ancients. The first was called the Yellow Ancient, and he was the master of earth. The second was called the Red Ancient, and he was the master of fire. The third was called the Dark Ancient, and he was the master of water. The fourth was called the Wood Prince, and he was the master of wood. The fifth was called the Metal Mother, and she was the mistress of metals.*

Now each of these five ancients set in motion the primordial spirit from which he had proceeded, so that water and earth sank downward; the heavens soared aloft and the earth became fast in the depths. Then the water gathered into rivers and lakes, and the mountains and plains appeared. The heavens cleared and the earth divided; then there were sun, moon, and all the stars, sand, clouds, rain, and dew. The Yellow Ancient gave play to the purest power of the earth, and to this were added the operations of fire and water. Then there sprang into being the grasses and trees, birds and animals, and the generations of the snakes and insects, and fishes and turtles. The Wood Prince and the Metal Mother brought light and darkness together and thereby created the human race, as man and woman. Thus gradually appeared the world....^[21]

Figure 58. Tangaroaā, Producing Gods and Men (carved wood, Rurutu Island, early eighteenth century a.d.)4. Within Space — Life

The first effect of the cosmogonic emanations is the framing of the world stage of space; the second is the production of life within the frame: life polarized for self-reproduction under the dual form of the male and female. It is possible to represent the entire process in sexual terms, as a pregnancy and birth. This idea is superbly rendered in another metaphysical genealogy of the Maoris:

From the conception the increase,

From the increase the thought,

From the thought the remembrance,

From the remembrance the consciousness,

From the consciousness the desire.

The word became fruitful;

It dwelt with the feeble glimmering;

It brought forth night:

The great night, the long night,

The lowest night, the loftiest night,

The thick night, to be felt,

The night to be touched,

The night not to be seen,