Hard Māori legends word search

About this word search

In many tellings the children of Ranginui and Papatūānuku became the atua of the natural world: Tangaroa of the sea, Tāwhirimātea of wind and storms, Tūmatauenga of war and people, Rongo of cultivated food and Haumia-tiketike of wild food. Rūaumoko, the youngest, still stirs inside his mother and shakes the earth, and Tāne shaped Hineahuone, the first woman, from earth. Names and roles differ between iwi.

The grid is eighteen by eighteen and words run in all eight directions, backwards included. Haumia-tiketike is the longest with fourteen letters once the hyphen goes. Tāwhirimātea, Patupaiarehe and Kurangaituku follow with twelve. Māui, Tāne, Kupe and Rona are four letters long and easy to miss backwards. Macrons and hyphens drop out, so Tūmatauenga is TUMATAUENGA and Hine-nui-te-pō is HINENUITEPO. Hineahuone, Hinemoa and Hine-nui-te-pō all start with HINE, so read on before you circle.

In a te reo Māori or social studies class, each student chooses one atua or character from the list, such as Mahuika and her gift of fire or Hatupatu and his escape from Kurangaituku, and retells the story in a few sentences. Compare versions and talk about why one story can be told differently by different iwi.