A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Amai-te-rangi lowers a basket from the sky to lure people upward, where he kills them with a chisel and mallet. Gill records a basket or great fish-hook variant and the spelling Apai as well as Amai. Moko’s lizard scouts discover his gigantic size, human bones and nearby ball-playing women.
Ngaru repeatedly jerks the basket downward, exhausting its owner while Moko sends additional lizards with each ascent. When the giant raises his weapons, the lizards cover his body and tickle his armpits until he cannot strike accurately. He drops the tools; Ngaru seizes them, kills him and returns with them. Gill’s report of a family claiming descent from this figure remains a historical social attribution, not proof of biological giant ancestry.
Origins & earliest records
William Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (London: Henry S. King, 1876), X: The Adventures of Ngaru. General contributor acknowledgements name Tereavai and Sadaraka; individual prose narrator not supplied.
Records & interpretation
Complete selected prose narrative and interpretive ending read in consecutive bounded OCR sections. Variant endings and compiler judgments retained as such.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, X: The Adventures of Ngaru, pp. 234–237
Direct digitized printed witness; original-language scan collation remains open.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary collected textMyths and Songs from the South Pacific, X: The Adventures of Ngaru, pp. 234–237Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.