In the mythology

Polynesian mythology

Polynesian mythology is the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia, a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian triangle together with the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers...

 of Mangaia

Mangaia

Mangaia is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga.-Geography:...

 in the Cook Islands, Moko is a wily character and grandfather of the heroic Ngaru

Ngaru

In a tradition from Mangaia in the Cook Islands, Ngaru was an ancient hero who lived in Avaiki . His mother was Vaiare and his grandfather, Moko . His wife was the beautiful Tongatea...

. (Gill 1876:234). Moko is a ruler or king of the lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...

s, and he orders his lizard subjects to climb into the basket of the sky demon Amai-te-rangi

Amai-te-rangi

In the mythology of Mangaia in the Cook Islands, Amai-te-rangi is a sky demon. One day the people of this world are surprised to see a large basket being lowered from the sky. Some, curious, climb into the basket and are quickly lifted up out of sight, never to return...

to spy on him. When Amai-te-rangi pulls up his basket, he is disappointed to find it full of miserable little reptiles, which escape and overrun his home in the sky (Gill 1876:234).