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Aitu
In Polynesian languages the word ''aitu'' refers to ghosts or spirits, often malevolent. The word is common to many languages of Western and Eastern Polynesia. In the mythology of Tonga, for example, ''aitu'' or ''eitu'' are lesser gods, many being patrons of specific villages and families. They often take the form of plants or animals, and are often more cruel than other gods. These trouble-making gods are regarded as having come from Samoa. The Tongan word ''tangi lauaitu'' means to cry from grief, to lament. In Māori mythology, the word ''aitu'' refers to sickness, calamity, or demons; the related word ''aituā'' means misfortune, accident, disaster. In Tahitian, ''aitu'' (syn. atua/raitu) can mean 'god' or 'spirit';Fare vana'a dictionary ('raitu' is also an affectionate word given to a cherished child/ref> in other languages, including Rarotongan, Samoan, Sikaiana, Kapingamarangi, Takuu, Tuamotuan, and Niuean, ''aitu'' are ghosts or spirits. In Cook Islands ''Aitu'' is also t ...
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Tao People
The Tao people are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the tiny outlying Orchid Island of Taiwan. They have a maritime culture, with great ritual and spiritual significance placed on boat-building and fishing. Their ways of life have been threatened by the continued emigration to the mainland of Taiwan in search of jobs and education. As a result, the continuation of past traditions has been hindered. Despite being linked to both other Taiwanese indigenous peoples and Filipino populations, the Tao people remain unique in their customs and cultural practices. The Tao people have been more commonly recorded under the exonym "Yami people" by official documents and academic literature, following Japanese anthropologist Torii Ryuzo's coining of the name in 1897. However, as a collective, these Orchid Island inhabitants typically prefer "Tao people" as their group identifier. Recently, they have successfully petitioned the Council of Indigenous Peoples of the Taiwanese government ...
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Hanitu
Hanitu or qanitu is the Bunun of Taiwan's term for spirit, but it does not exactly equate with terms from other cultures, and is one of three domains of Bunun spiritual thought, another being ''isang'', which equates more to the soul, breath, and heart. It may refer to the spirit of any living creature as well as forms animate or not, such as land, rocks, plants, animals, and humans. All objects contained ''hanitu''. In Malay and Indonesian, the term for ghost, ''hantu'', may be of related origin. As opposed to other religions and belief systems, multiple spirits can exist in one object/creature, as in the case of humans. They believed bad souls brought illness. With the adoption of Christianity these terms changed, with being equated to ''devil''. Nevertheless, some scholars believe the native concepts were not replaced, but rather Christian thought was added on. Strength of hanitu were innate. Etymology ''Hanitu'' or ''hanidu'' is derived from Proto-Austronesian ''*qaNiCu'' (" ...
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Anito
''Anito'', also spelled ''anitu'', refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities in the indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial age to the present, although the term itself may have other meanings and associations depending on the Filipino ethnic group. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the ''taotao'', made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. ''Anito'' (a term predominantly used in Luzon) is also sometimes known as ''diwata'' in certain ethnic groups (especially among Visayans). ''Pag-anito'' refers to a séance, often accompanied by other rituals or celebrations, in which a shaman (Visayan: ''babaylan'', Tagalog: ''katalonan'') acts as a medium to communicate directly with the spirits. When a nature spirit or deity is specifically involved, the ritual is called ''pagdiwata''. The act of worship or a religious sacrifice to a spirit is also sometimes simply referred to as ''anito''. The belief in ''anito'' are so ...
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Hantu Demon
Hantu is the Malay and Indonesian word for spirit or ghost, sometimes it is also the Tagalog word for ghost . In modern usage it generally means spirits of the dead but has also come to refer to any legendary invisible being, such as demons. In its traditional context the term also referred to animistic nature spirits or ancestral souls. The word is derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian ''*qanitu'' and Proto-Austronesian ''*qaNiCu''. Cognates in other Austronesian languages include the Micronesian ''aniti'', Lio language ''nitu'', Yami ''anito'', Taivoan ''alid'', Seediq and Atayal ''utux'', Bunun ''hanitu'' or ''hanidu'', Polynesian ''aitu'' or ''atua'', and Tsou ''hicu'' among the Formosan languages. In terms of concept and place in traditional folklore, it is most similar to the Filipino anito. Types Aside from generic spirits of the dead, there exist various forms of Hantu including both the benign and malevolent. * Hantu Air: spirit inhabiting the water * Hantu Beruk: ap ...
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Austronesian People
The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia. Based on the current scientific consensus, they originated from a Early human migrations, prehistoric seaborne migration, known as the Austronesian expansion, from pre-Han Chinese, Han Taiwan, at around 1500 to 1000 BCE. Austronesians reached the northernmost Philippines, specifically the Batanes, Batanes Islands, by around 2200 BCE. Austronesians used sails some time before 2000 BCE. In conjunction with their use of other maritime technologies (notably c ...
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Māori Legendary Creatures
Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Cook Islands * Cook Islands Māori, the language of the Cook Islanders Ships * SS ''Maori'', a steamship of the Shaw Savill Line, shipwrecked 1909 * , a Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer, sunk in 1915 * , a Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer, launched 1936 and sunk 1942 * TEV ''Maori III'', a Union Steam Ship Company inter-island ferry, 1952–74 Sports teams * New Zealand Māori cricket team * New Zealand Māori rugby league team * New Zealand Māori rugby union team Other * ''Maori'', a novel by Alan Dean Foster *Mayotte, in the Bushi language Bushi or Kibosy (''Shibushi'' or ''Kibushi'') is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. Malagasy dialects most closely related to Bushi are spoken in northwe ...
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Samoan Words And Phrases
Samoan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean ** Something of, from, or related to Samoa, a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands ** Something of, from, or related to American Samoa, a United States territory in the Samoan Islands * Samoan language, the native language of the Samoan Islands * Samoans Samoans or Samoan people ( sm, tagata Sāmoa) are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in Polynesia, who speak the Samoan language. The group's home islands are politically and geographically divided between th ..., a Polynesian ethnic group of the Samoan Islands {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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Māori Words And Phrases
Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Cook Islands * Cook Islands Māori, the language of the Cook Islanders Ships * SS ''Maori'', a steamship of the Shaw Savill Line, shipwrecked 1909 * , a Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer, sunk in 1915 * , a Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer, launched 1936 and sunk 1942 * TEV ''Maori III'', a Union Steam Ship Company inter-island ferry, 1952–74 Sports teams * New Zealand Māori cricket team * New Zealand Māori rugby league team * New Zealand Māori rugby union team Other * ''Maori'', a novel by Alan Dean Foster *Mayotte, in the Bushi language Bushi or Kibosy (''Shibushi'' or ''Kibushi'') is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. Malagasy dialects most closely related to Bushi are spoken in northwe ...
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Tongan Mythology
Tongan narrative (or Tongan mythology) is a variant of a more general Polynesian narrative in Tonga. Creation myth In the beginning there was just the sea and the spirit world, Pulotu, and between them was a rock called Touiao Futuna. On the rock lived Biki and his twin sister, Kele, Atungaki and his twin sister, Maimoao Longona, Fonua'uta and his twin sister, Fonuavai, and Hemoana and his twin sister, Lupe. Biki lay with his own sister and she bore him two children, a son, Taufulifonua, and a daughter, Havea Lolofonua; Atungaki also lay with his sister, who bore him a daughter, Velelahi; and Fonuauta lay with his sister and she bore him a daughter, Velesii. When Taufulifonua grew to manhood, his sister, Havea Lolofonua, bore him a son, Hikuleʻo, Tangaloa and Maui divided the creation between them. Hikuleo took as his portion, Pulotu, Tangaloa took the sky and Maui the underworld. Hemoana, whose form was the sea snake, and Lupe, whose form was a dove, then divided the remainder ...
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Tui Fiti
Tui Fiti or Tuifiti is the name of a figure referred to in different legends in Samoan mythology and in other parts of Polynesia. In other stories, "Tui Fiti" means "high chief of Fiti." Savai'i On the island of Savai'i in Samoa, a spirit deity called Tui Fiti resides in Fagamalo, a village said to have once been settled by Fijians. The special abode of Tui Fiti was a mound within a grove of large and durable trees called '' ifilele'' (''Afzilia bijuga''). Tui Fiti's abode is called the ''vao sa'', a sacred part of the forest which is tapu in Fagamalo. Tui Fiti is referred to as the ''ali'i'' (high chief) of Fagamalo. There are no other ''ali'i'' chiefly titles in the village where all the ''matai'' chief titles are of orator ''tulafale'' status. Fagamalo is one of the ''pito nu'u'' sub-villages of the greater Matautu village on Savai'i island's central north coast. The missionary George Turner wrote in ''Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before'' (1884) that Tuifiti was the n ...
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Taotao Mona
Taotao Mo'na, also commonly written as taotaomona or taotaomo'na (Chamoru ''taotao'', "person/people" and ''mo'na'' "precede", loosely translated as "people before history" or "ancient people"), are spirits of ancient giant inhabitants believed to protect the mountains and wild places of the Mariana Islands, which include Luta, Saipan, Tinian and Guam, in Micronesia. Belief in Taotao Mo'na is present throughout these islands. Academic accounts With the Spanish conquest of Guam in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the resultant destruction of the old way of life of the native Chamorros, went also the practice of ancestor veneration. Early Spanish accounts of Chamorros did not include any mention of Taotao Mo'na. The concept of Taotao Mo'na therefore appears to have emerged during the Spanish occupation and was created by the Chamorros who "turned to the memory of their Before Time Ancestors for pride and comfort." The modern stories of Taotao Mo'na tend to be simple superstitions in ...
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Polynesian Mythology
The Polynesian narrative or Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian - probably spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area around 1000 BC. Description Prior to the 15th century AD, Polynesian peoples fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and from there to other groups such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their descendants later discovered the islands from Tahiti to Rapa Nui, and later Hawai‘i and New Zealand. The latest research puts the settlement of New Zealand at about 1300 AD. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to permit communication between some other language speakers. ...
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