The Genealogies recorded hereafter are divisible into three distinct epochs:— 1. That comprising the personified Powers of Nature preceding the existence of man, which Powers are regarded by the _Maori_ as their own primitive ancestors, and are invoked in their _karakia_ by all the _Maori_ race; for we find the names of Rangi, Rongo, Tangaroa, &c., mentioned as _Atua_ or Gods of the _Maori_ of the Sandwich Islands and other Islands of the Pacific inhabited by the same race. The common worship of these primitive _Atua_ constituted the National religion of the Maori. 2. In addition to this the _Maori_ had a religious worship peculiar to each tribe and to each family, in forms of _karakia_ or invocation addressed to the spirits of dead ancestors of their own proper line of descent. Ancestral spirits who had lived in the flesh before the migration to New Zealand would be invoked by all the tribes in New Zealand, so far as their names had been preserved, in their traditional records as mighty spirits. 3. From the time of the migration to New Zealand each tribe and each family would in addition address their invocations to their own proper line of ancestors,—thus giving rise to a family religious worship in addition to the national religion. The cause of the preservation of their Genealogies becomes intelligible when we consider that they often formed the ground-work of their religious formulas, and that to make an error or even hesitation in repeating a _karakia_ was deemed fatal to its efficacy. In the forms of _karakia_ addressed to the spirits of ancestors, the concluding words are generally a petition to the _Atua_ invoked to give force or effect to the _karakia_ as being derived through the _Tipua_, the _Pukenga_, and the _Wananga_, and so descending to the living _Tauira_. MAORI COSMOGONY. Powers | Te Po (=The Night). of | Te Po−toki (=hanging Night). Night | Te Po−terea (=drifting Night). and | Te Po−whawha (=moaning Night). Darkness. | Hine−ruakimoe. | Te Po. Powers | Te Ata (=The Morn). of | Te Ao−tu−roa (=The abiding Day). Light. | Te Ao−marama (=bright Day). | Whaitua (=space). Powers | Te Kore (=The Void). of | Te Kore−tuatahi. Cosmos | Te Kore−tuarua. without | Kore−nui. form | Kore−roa. and | Kore−para. void. | Kore−whiwhia. | Kore−rawea. | Kore−te−tamaua (=Void fast bound). | Te Mangu (=the black) sc. Erebus. From the union of Te Mangu with Mahorahora-nui-a-Rangi (=The great expanse of Rangi) came four children:— 1. Toko-mua (=elder prop). 2. Toko-roto (=middle prop). 3. Toko-pa (=last prop). 4. Rangi-potiki (=child Rangi). GENEALOGICAL DESCENT FROM TOKO-MUA.