In the account most widely told, Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother lay pressed together, and their children were held between them in darkness with no room to stand. The children debated what to do. Tumatauenga argued for killing the parents. Tane argued for separating them, so that the parents would remain and the children would have light, and that counsel prevailed. Several of the brothers tried and failed. Tane braced his shoulders against his mother and his feet against his father and pushed until the two came apart, and the world of light, te ao marama, opened between them.
Tawhirimatea, the wind, did not agree, and has warred against his brothers ever since. The parents grieve: the mist rising from the earth and the rain falling from the sky are named as their longing for each other, which gives the account a cost rather than a clean victory.
This is not a single fixed text. Different iwi and hapu tell it with different brothers taking the decisive part, with different names, and with different consequences following, and those tellings belong to the groups that hold them rather than to a general Maori mythology. Nineteenth century written versions, above all the material set down by Te Rangikaheke, shaped what later became the standard printed account, and that standardising is itself part of the history of how the account has been transmitted.