When savages ask themselves, as they certainly _do_ ask themselves, whence the sky, whence the winds, the sun, moon, stars, sea, rivers, mountains and other natural objects, they reply in terms of good logic applied to deficient knowledge. All the knowledge they possess is that based upon their own material senses. And therefore, when they apply that knowledge to subjects outside their own personality, they deal with them in terms of their own personality. How did the sky get up there, above their heads--the sky evidently so lovingly fond of the earth, so intimately connected with the earth? The New Zealand answer to these questions is a great one, by whatever standard it is measured. Heaven and earth, they say, were husband and wife, so locked in close embrace that darkness everywhere prevailed. Their children were ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light. At last, worn out by the continued darkness, they consulted amongst themselves whether they should slay their parents, Rangi and Papa, _i.e._ heaven and earth, or whether they should rend them apart. The fiercest of their children exclaimed, "Let us slay them!" but the forest, another of the sons, said, "Nay, not so. It is better to rend them apart, and to let heaven stand far above us and the earth to lie under our feet. Let the sky become as a stranger to us, but the earth remain close to us as our nursing-mother." The brothers consented to this proposal with the exception of Tawhiri-ma-tea, the father of winds and storms; thus five of the brothers consented and one would not agree. Then each of the brothers tries to rend his parents, heaven and earth, asunder. First the father of cultivated food tries and fails; then the father of fish and reptiles; then the father of uncultivated food; then the father of fierce human beings. Then at last slowly uprises Tane-mahuta, the father of forests, birds, and insects, and he struggles with his parents; in vain he strives to rend them apart with his hands and arms. Lo, he pauses; his head is now firmly planted on his mother, the earth; his feet he raises up and rests against his father, the skies; he strains his back and limbs with mighty effort, and at last are rent apart Rangi and Papa, who shriek aloud with cries and groans. But Tane-mahuta pauses not, he regards not their shrieks and cries; far, far beneath him he presses down the earth; far, far above him he thrusts up the sky. Then were discovered a multitude of human beings whom heaven and earth had begotten, and who had hitherto lain concealed. But Tawhiri-ma-tea, the wind and storm, the brother who had not consented, is angry at this rending apart of his parents, and he rises and follows his father, the sky, and fights fiercely with the earth and his brothers.[187]