Editing Ruatapu (section)

==Māori traditions==
[[File:Comb, Maori people, whalebone, collected during James Cook's second circumnavigation 1772-75 by Anders Sparrman - Etnografiska museet - Stockholm, Sweden - DSC00816.JPG|thumb|right|350x350px|A Māori whalebone comb at Etnografiska museet, collected by [[James Cook|Captain James Cook]] - so often, the denial of a sacred comb is the catalyst for Ruatapu's revenge.]]
In the Māori traditions of Ruatapu's life, he is always a son of Chief Uenuku, ariki of [[Hawaiki]], and is belittled by him for being his only son born of a slave wife, and therefore being unable to use a sacred comb in his hair. With the exception of [[Paikea]], Ruatapu kills Hawaiki's nobility aboard a canoe in every telling. The story is particularly well-known to tribes that originated in the [[Gisborne District]] such as [[Ngāti Porou]], [[Ngāti Kahungunu]], and [[Ngāi Tahu]], and especially Ngāti Porou's [[hapū]] Ngāti Konohi.

In one telling of the legend, Ruatapu had been belittled by Uenuku for using the sacred comb of his elder brother, [[Paikea|Kahutiaterangi]]. As revenge, Ruatapu enticed most of Uenuku's children into his canoe, sailed them to the ocean, and then sank it in an event called ''Te Huripureiata''. Kahutiaterangi survived with the help of a whale and was thereafter known as Paikea. Meanwhile, Ruatapu convinced the gods of the tides to destroy the land and its inhabitants. Paikea fled to high ground and was saved through the intervention of the goddess [[Moakuramanu]]. One version of the myth holds that Ruatapu drowned in the flood and that his bowels became the first jellyfish, or the rebuke came when {{lang|mi|Ruatapu|italic=no}} dared to walk on the roof of {{lang|mi|Uenuku|italic=no}}'s house.<ref name="Craig1989">{{cite book|author=R.D. Craig|date=1989|title=Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology|location=New York|publisher=Canterbury University Press|page=237}}</ref><ref name="Reedy1993">{{cite book|author=Reedy, Anaru|date=1993|title=Ngā Kōrero a Mohi Ruatapu, tohunga rongonui o Ngāti Porou: The Writings of Mohi Ruatapu|location=Christchurch|publisher=Canterbury University Press|pages=142–146}}</ref>

Another telling says that Ruatapu used Uenuku's own hairpiece, believing himself to be the senior son, as the eldest, when in fact Kahutiaterangi was the senior son owing to a difference in lineage. Ruatapu then went away and built his own large canoe that could hold 140 people. Once finished he announced that he would set off in it, and then killed everyone aboard with a spear, save for Paikea, who took to the ocean and was saved by the gods.<ref name=teara-ngaitahu>{{cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/ngai-tahu/page-1|title=Early history [of Ngāi Tahu]|publisher=Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand|access-date=20 April 2020}}</ref>

In yet another telling says that Chief Uenuku made a canoe for the nobility and was preparing the hair of all 70 of his noble children for their first sail inside of it. Uenuku himself, combed, oiled, and tied the hair of every last one of them, except Ruatapu. When Ruatapu asked why his father had not treated his hair, Uenuku told him he could not because he was the only son of a slave woman, and his hair was not tapu like his brothers'. This put Ruatapu to shame, and so he refused to eat dinner that night, instead going down to the canoe and putting a hole in its bottom, before filling it with wood chips and hiding the canoe's bailer. In the morning when they launched the canoe, Ruatapu hid the hole with his heel. When they were far out at sea he released the hole and removed the chips. The water rushed in, and nobody could find the bailer as Ruatapu had hidden it onshore. Everybody drowned, except Paikea, who was saved through his mother's ancestor [[Tangaroa]] who summoned the whale. Ruatapu's last attempt at killing Paikea was to use an incantation to hurl waves at him. This backfired as Paikea was too far away now, and the waves just rolled back onto Ruatapu thus drowning him.<ref name="TeAo">{{cite web|url=http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz/journals/teaohou/issue/Mao40TeA/c5.html|title=The Story of Paikea and Ruatapu|publisher=Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa - National Library of New Zealand|access-date=15 April 2020}}</ref>

===Ngāti Porou tradition===
In a tradition of Ngāti Porou, Ruatapu became angry when his father Uenuku elevated his younger half-brother Kahutiaterangi ahead of him in status. Ruatapu lured Kahutiaterangi and a large number of young men of high birth into his canoe, and took them out to sea where he drowned them.  He called on the gods to destroy his enemies and threatened to return as the great waves of early summer,<ref name="Reedy1997">{{cite book|author=Reedy, Anaru|date=1997|title=Ngā Kōrero a Pita Kāpiti: The Teachings of Pita Kāpiti|location=Christchurch|publisher=Canterbury University Press|pages=83–85)}}</ref> shouting out to Kahutiaterangi that he would return to fight him: "The great waves of the eighth month, they are me! I am then approaching!" In an endnote, Reedy writes:

<blockquote>
    In the eighth month of the Māori calendar, in the early summer, large waves known as ''ngā tai o Rangawhenua'', Rangawhenua's waves, sometimes break upon the shore on the East Coast. In this episode Ruatapu announces that in the eighth month he will take this form, and follow Paikea.<ref name="Reedy1993"/>
</blockquote>

Such accounts or conclusions may result from [[Christianity|Christian]] influence, inspired by the [[Genesis flood narrative]]. The eighth month of the Māori calendar is Kohitātea (December–January) according to [[Ngāi Tūhoe]].<ref name=teara-lunarmonths>{{cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/maramataka-the-lunar-calendar/page-1|title=Lunar Months|publisher=Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand|access-date=20 April 2020}}</ref>