 A deifed person, or persons, named Uenuku features with certain roles in some canoes' migration stories.Often he is an of Hawaiki who serves as a catalyst for disputes, which end with the migrations to New Zealand.The name Uenuku also belongs to one or more associated with rainbows and war; depending on the telling, he was either a mortal who was visited by a mistmaiden from the heavens and then turned into a rainbow to be with her after tricking her into staying in his house past dawn, or he was a spirit who visited Tamatea Arikinui's wife night after night and impregnated her.