The Maori Underworld

Rarohenga is the underworld of Maori tradition, generally described as an inverted realm beneath the earth, home to ancestral spirits and, in some accounts, ruled over or connected to Hine-nui-te-po, the goddess associated with night and death in Maori cosmology, though the fuller genealogical and narrative detail surrounding Rarohenga belongs properly to Maori iwi and their own recorded traditions rather than to a general summary.

Some recorded narratives describe entry to and return from Rarohenga as possible under specific circumstances, most notably in versions of the story of Hine-nui-te-po herself, whose own transformation into the guardian of the underworld follows her discovery of her husband Tane's true identity, giving Rarohenga a strong narrative connection to themes of transformation, mortality and the boundary between life and death that runs throughout Maori cosmology. As with Po and Pulotu, this entry stays at the level of Rarohenga's general, publicly recorded cosmological role, since more specific genealogical and tribal narrative material is held and best related by the Maori communities and knowledge-holders whose tradition it is.