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I'm in the process of expanding this article - next - more Whanganui-Taranaki traditions. To come: Ngati Kahungunu, South Island, and Northland traditions, plus an expansion about the content and characteristics of Smith's orthodox version and a tidy up of the opening paragraphs.
Kahuroa 19:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC) last edited
Kahuroa 10:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)reply
Wow! Your revisions are amazing! Fascinating how much diversity there is. (And to think that all these articles used to begin "X is a figure in Polynesian mythology"; even "Maori" mythology is not a monolith.
Bucketsofg✐ 18:06, 14 May 2006 (UTC)reply
Yeah, That's the thing with oral traditions. Never monolithic unless everyone lives in one village - and even then.... Like your rearrangement. I knew the opening paras were a mess but I was leaving that till last for no good reason. Cheers.
Kahuroa 19:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)reply
So Who or What is.... it/he?
A few paragraphs in it says: "Kupe was a great chief of Hawaiki who arrived in New Zealand in 925 AD."
That sorta implies it was a human mortal. But elsewhere it's implied it is God, or a god or has god-like or magical powers. He/It needs to be defined in the intro, which should be "accessible" and self-contained. Perhaps most people are pausing their "real" reading to follow a hyperlink and just want a (deeper definition than a) dictionary. See
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(lead_section). --
69.239.205.135 (
talk) 22:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashfordreply
This is based on oral traditions (plural - multiple and often contradictory oral traditions). So there is no one correct version to define Kupe from. Nor is there a need to. There is nothing unusual in Polynesian oral history about someone being seen as a mortal in one story and a "god" or "godlike" in another, since many ancestors end up with divine attributes as the generations pass, often depending on the social and political needs of the descendants in their day to day dealings.
Kahuroa (
talk) 09:00, 24 May 2011 (UTC)reply
Pronunciation
Can someone who knows add the phonetic pronunciation of his name? Is it like "coop" or is it like "cute" but with a "k" (or perchance is it like "coupé")?
Raichu2 (
talk) 04:12, 2 June 2013 (UTC)reply
It's two syllables and close to "coupé". I don't know how to write phonetic pronunciations.
Nurg (
talk) 10:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)reply