Talk:Kupe

Untitled
I'm in the process of expanding this article - next - more Whanganui-Taranaki traditions. To come: Ngati Kahungunu, South Island, and Northland traditions, plus an expansion about the content and characteristics of Smith's orthodox version and a tidy up of the opening paragraphs. Kahuroa 19:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC) last edited Kahuroa 10:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow! Your revisions are amazing!  Fascinating how much diversity there is.  (And to think that all these articles used to begin "X is a figure in Polynesian mythology"; even "Maori" mythology is not a monolith.  Bucketsofg✐ 18:06, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, That's the thing with oral traditions. Never monolithic unless everyone lives in one village - and even then.... Like your rearrangement. I knew the opening paras were a mess but I was leaving that till last for no good reason. Cheers. Kahuroa 19:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

So Who or What is.... it/he?
A few paragraphs in it says: "Kupe was a great chief of Hawaiki who arrived in New Zealand in 925 AD."

That sorta implies it was a human mortal. But elsewhere it's implied it is God, or a god or has god-like or magical powers. He/It needs to be defined in the intro, which should be "accessible" and self-contained. Perhaps most people are pausing their "real" reading to follow a hyperlink and just want a (deeper definition than a) dictionary. See Manual_of_Style_(lead_section). --69.239.205.135 (talk) 22:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford
 * This is based on oral traditions (plural - multiple and often contradictory oral traditions). So there is no one correct version to define Kupe from. Nor is there a need to. There is nothing unusual in Polynesian oral history about someone being seen as a mortal in one story and a "god" or "godlike" in another, since many ancestors end up with divine attributes as the generations pass, often depending on the social and political needs of the descendants in their day to day dealings. Kahuroa (talk) 09:00, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Can someone who knows add the phonetic pronunciation of his name? Is it like "coop" or is it like "cute" but with a "k" (or perchance is it like "coupé")? Raichu2 (talk) 04:12, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's two syllables and close to "coupé". I don't know how to write phonetic pronunciations. Nurg (talk) 10:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)