"CHANT TO IO

Io dwelt within the breathing-space of immensity. // The universe was in darkness, with water everywhere. // There was no glimmer of dawn, no clearness, no light.

And he began by saying these words,

That he might cease remaining inactive:

'Darkness, become a light-possessing darkness.' And at once a light appeared.

He then repeated these self-same words in this manner,

That he might cease remaining inactive:

'Light, become a darkness-possessing light.' And again an intense darkness supervened.

Then a third time He spake, saying:

'Let there be one darkness above. Let there be one darkness below. Let there be a darkness unto Tupua. Let there be a darkness unto Tawhito. A dominion of light. A bright light.' And now a great light prevailed.

Io then looked to the waters which compassed him about, and spake a fourth time, saying:

'Ye waters of Tai kama, be ye separate. Heaven be formed.' Then the sky became suspended.

'Bring forth thou Te Tupua horo nuku.' And at once the moving earth lay stretched abroad."

(Tiwai Paraone, New Zealand (c. 1880). Translated by Hare Hongi. Legends of the South Seas.)

From the comments given by Alpers:

"More than fifty years after Christianity reached New Zealand it was suddenly disclosed by certain Maori elders that the pantheistic mythology hitherto revealed was not in fact the full story, and that according to an esoteric or 'higher' learning - withheld till then because of its sanctity - the Maori did have a single, Supreme Creator, whose name was Io.

The first reference in print to Io seems to have been made in 1876, by C. O. Davis, who said a member of the Ngapuhi tribe had told him 'that the Maoris in olden times had worshipped a Supreme Being whose name was so sacred that none but a priest might utter it at certain times and places ...' (70: 32).

The only complete account was given much later, in a manuscript dictated by the Maori elder Te Matorohanga and published  in 1913 (Smith, 82). But both this elder and his scribe Te Whatahoro were converted to Christianity long before the manuscript was composed.

The little word 'io' or 'kio', as Buck points out in an amused survey of the principal evidence and claims (69: 526f.), can sometimes mean the squeak of a rat or bird, at other times muscular twitches of the body that were regarded as omens by the Maori.

Even so, Io-Jehovah caused some excitement in an age which wished to persuade itself that primitive peoples had really been Believers all along, and His revelation soon led to further discoveries elsewhere in Polynesia - notably in the Tuamotu, where Stimson believed as late as 1933 that he had unearthed a cult of 'Kiho'.

The reader, ever alert, will have noticed already that a minor deity named Io is listed among the 'progeny of Tu' in Shand's Creation myth from the Chatham Islands ... which was first published in 1894. But in view of the date he could easily have been one of the 'un-Moriori interpolations' which Shand's rival William Baucke (91: 384) asperly charges Shand with having made ..."

1. Defeated; one who has taken refuge in a house or in a cave. 2. To come out a winner, to win, to be victorious in war, in a quarrel, in a race: ku-kio-á te taûa i a Miru, the war was won by the Miru; ku-kio-á te toru vaka, the third boat won. Kiokio, to smell of smoke, to smell smoky (of food). Vanaga.

1. Stick wherewith to rake things into a heap. 2. Slave, servant, inferior, of low estate, husbandsman. Hakakio, to enslave, to reduce to subjection; tagata hakakio, master. Mgv.: kio, a servant, slave, tiller of the soil. 3. To discourage; also kioa. Kiokio, foul smelling smoke. 4. Pau.: kiokio, to chirp. Mgv.: kio, id. Ta.: ioio, to cry, said of a baby. Mq.: kiokio, to chirp. Sa.: 'io, id. Ha.: ioio, id. 5. Mgv.: kio, little, small, said of birds and animals. Mq.: kio, young of birds. 6. Mgv.: kiokio, a fish. Mq.: kiokio, id. 7. Mq.: kio, said of women and children who run away to the mountain shelters in time of war. Ha.: kio, to flee, to hasten away in fear. Churchill.

Hakakio, festival of thanksgiving. Barthel 2.

Iore. Indistinctly. Churchill.

Io. Mgv.: At the house of. Ta.: io, id. Mq.: io, id. Aka-ioio, feeble, lean and thin. Mq.: hakaioio, to be wrinkled, flabby flesh of the aged. Churchill.

The defeated one (kio), who has taken refuge in a cave (or a house), may refer to the old year. Only the smell of his smoke (kiokio) remains. Like women and children who run away to the mountain shelters in time of war (kio) he has hastened away in fear (kio).

But to flee is to survive, and he will come out as a winner (kio). In the meantime, in the dark cave, he has changed apparel into a new 'costume' and will emerge as a little one (kio), crying like a baby (ioio).

And the people on Easter Island will have their hakakio festival of thanksgiving. They are thanking the power above for the return of spring light. The time of this festival is when winter has been driven away and the new year sun has won the battle. It is Tangaroa Uri.

The Black Rat (Te Kioe Uri) is the 5th kuhane station and it is located a quarter earlier. The new fire is alighted in midwinter. Here we can add the important information that kio = 'stick wherewith to rake things into a heap'. To which can be added that kio is also a 'tiller of the soil'. Working earth with a stick has to do with making it fertile. The 'heap' is presumably referring to the primordial mound:

... Ta'aroa tahi tumu, 'Ta'aroa origl. stock' - most commonly Ta'aroa or Te Tumu - existed before everything except of a rock (Te Papa) which he compressed and begat a daughter (Ahuone) that is Vegetable Mole.*

* Ahuone means 'earth heaped up' - a widespread name for the Polynesian first woman. It sounds as if Cook also heard the term applied to the banks of humus and rotting material on which taro is grown. In the English of his day this was known as 'vegetable mould' ...

Tama is the 13th kuhane station and then comes One Tea. 'Earth' is equal to 'sand'. When the baby has been born it is time for 'tilling the soil' again. The rat is a symbol for the land (which has once again reappeared over the surface of the water).

Myths all over the world agree on the general scenario. Cinderella hides in the corner where the old fire has turned into ashes, but she has a magic stick - inside which is gold.