Ponaturi


In Māori mythology, the Ponaturi are a group of hostile creatures who live in a land beneath the sea by day, returning to shore each evening to sleep. They dread daylight, which is fatal to them. They appear in a number of stories, including:

Kanae

The kanae is represented as a companion of the Ponaturi in another version of Tāwhaki. When the Ponaturi come up out of the water to their house Manawa-Tāne, Kanae comes with them. Tāwhaki and Karihi kill all the Ponaturi, in revenge for the death of Hemā, but the mullet escapes by leaping again and again until it gets back to the sea.
In the story of Ruapupuke, the kanae is associated with similar creatures, the horde of Tangaroa, which are not overtly named as Ponaturi: