The story begins with sky father (Ranginui) and earth mother (Papatuanuku) lay in a tight embrace. They had many children who lived between them in darkness. The children wished to live in light so they forced their parents apart separating the sky from the earth and creating the world we live in today. The Maori believe that rain is the tears of sky father for earth mother and that mist are sighs of warmth as her body yearns for him.
    After the many attempts it took to separate them some of the children began to wish that it had not been done and went into a practical war against the other children. The main one of these is Tawhirimatea, the god of storms. He has children of his own such as wind.  Tawhirimatea attacks the other children such as Tane, the god of the forest and Tangaroa, the god of the sea. All of these fear the attacks of Tawhirimatea, except one group, Tu, which is human kind. All of the gods are bickering now between each other, however Tu subdues them all except Tawhirimatea, the god of storms.
    Tane however decides that Rangi (father sky) should be appropriately dressed and so he searches out heavenly bodies such as the stars, the moon, and the sun and throws them up on to Rangi dressing him in an appropriate matter.
    After reading about this creation story I have begun to see many connections between the Maori religion and the Greek mythology. Both of them begin with the old gods who are the sky and the planet. And in both their children wish to leave and so in Greek mythology they kill them and in Maori simply separate them.
These connections between the two begin to make me question if there was a connection between the two cultures and if there was, what was it? Was it a common ancestor or just interaction between ancestors?