Oceania names the lands of the South Central Pacific. It is an area bounded to the west by the east coast of Australia, to the north by Hawai'i, to the east by Easter Island (Rapanui), and to the south by New Zealand (Aotearoa). Spanish explorers had charted Pacific Islands in the early seventeenth century, and James Cook discovered parts of New Zealand in 1769 and both Hawai'i and the east coast of Australia in 1788. However, oral narrative began in Oceania long before there was any contact with European culture.

In Australia two migrant groups existed—one arriving some 70,000 years ago, almost certainly from Indonesia, and the other about 50,000 years ago, most likely from southern China. Modern Aborigines are the descendents of these groups, although precise lines of descent cannot be drawn. Nor is it known how Aboriginal religious practices derive from the migrants...