AO

[Polynesian] "Light", as the opposite of Po, "Night". The Polynesian god of the clouds, the first ancestor of the Maori and is sometimes called 'The Father of the Ancestors'. In the Pacific, clouds are not associated with darkness, for they often look like columns of light. He is of vital importance to navigators because they could discern the presence of land from the shape of the clouds on the horizon, and also used them to predict rain. He is also called Ao Toto, "Blood-Red Dawn".