Auahitūroa is a personification of comets, and the origin of fire, in a legend of the Ngāti Awa

Ngati Awa

Ngāti Awa is a Māori iwi centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand.Ngāti Awa comprises 22 hapu , with 15,258 people claiming affiliation to the iwi in 2006. The Ngāti Awa people are primarily located in towns on the Rangitaiki Plain, including Whakatane, Kawerau, Edgecumbe, Te...

, a Māori tribe of the eastern Bay of Plenty

Bay of Plenty

The Bay of Plenty , often abbreviated to BOP, is a region in the North Island of New Zealand situated around the body of water of the same name...

 in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

. The name can be translated 'long standing smoke', a fitting description for a comet. Auahitūroa is a son of Tama-nui-te-rā

Tama-nui-te-ra

In Māori mythology, Tama-nui-te-rā is the personification of the Sun.Māui decided that the days were too short and caught Tamanui-te-rā with a snare, then beat him to make him travel more slowly across the sky. In some legends Tama-nui-te-rā is the husband of Ārohirohi, goddess of mirages...

 (the sun god). Tama-nui-te-rā tells Auahitūroa to take a beneficial thing to humankind in the shape of fire. Auahitūroa comes down to earth in the form of a comet, and marries Mahuika

Mahuika

Mahuika is a Māori fire deity. Generally, Mahuika is female. In some versions, she is the younger sister of Hine-nui-te-pō, goddess of death. It was from her that Māui obtained the secret of making fire. She married Auahi-Turoa and together they had five children, named for the five fingers on the...

, younger sister of Hinenui-te-pō, goddess of death. The sons of Auahitūroa and Mahuika are Ngā Mānawa

Nga Manawa

Ngā Mānawa, in a tradition of the Ngāti Awa, a Māori tribe of the eastern Bay of Plenty in New Zealand's North Island, was the collective name for the Fire Children, the five sons of Mahuika and Auahitūroa...

, the five Fire Children. Another Māori name for a comet is Ūpokoroa (long-headed one); a poetic name for fire is te tama a Ūpokoroa, (the son of Upokoroa) (Best 1982:244-245).