Taʼaroa is the supreme creator god in the mythology of the
Society Islands
The Society Islands ( , officially ; ) are an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean that includes the major islands of Tahiti, Mo'orea, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country ...
of
French Polynesia
French Polynesia ( ; ; ) is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole #Governance, overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than in the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. The t ...
.
While the use of the
ʼeta is appropriate given the pronunciation of his name, it is often omitted in practice, as is typically the case with
Tahitian words.
The Myth
In the beginning, there was only Taʼaroa, creator of all, including himself. He waited alone in his shell,
which appeared as an egg spinning in the empty endless void of the time before the sky, before the Earth, before the Moon, before the Sun, before the stars. He was bored, alone in his shell, and so he cracked it with a shake of his body and slid out of its confines, finding everything somber and silent outside, finding himself alone in the nothingness.
So he broke the shell into pieces and from them formed the rocks and the sand, and the foundation of all the world, Tumu-Nui. With his backbone he created the mountains; with his tears he filled the oceans, the lakes, the rivers; with his fingernails and toenails he made the scales that cover the fish and the turtles; with his feathers he created the trees and the bushes; with his blood he colored the rainbow.
Taʼaroa then called forth artists who came with their baskets filled with Toʼi, so that they might sculpt
Tane, the first god. Then came Ru, Hina,
Maui
Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...
, and hundreds of others. Tane decorated the sky with stars and hung the sun in the sky to illuminate the day and the moon to illuminate the night. Taʼaroa decided then to complete his work by creating man.
He divided the world into 7 levels. On the bottommost level lived man, and he multiplied quickly, which delighted Taʼaroa. Sharing the space as he did with creatures and plants of all sorts, it was not long before man felt crowded in his space and so decided to expand his domain by opening a hole into the level above his. Man continued in this fashion, filling one level and then climbing to the next, one level at a time, until all levels were occupied.
And so man filled the Earth, but still all belonged to Taʼaroa, who was master of all.
See also
*
Cosmic Man
*
Io Matua Kore
Io Matua Kore is often understood as the supreme being in Polynesian native religion, particularly of the Māori people.
Io does seem to be present in the mythologies of other Polynesian islands including Hawai‘i, the Society Islands, and th ...
paramount deity in New Zealand
Māori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori people, Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern tales of supernatural events relating to the origins of what was the ...
*
Tagaloa
In Samoan mythology, Tagaloa (also known as Tagaloa-Lagi or Tagaloa, Lagi of the Heavens/Skies) is generally accepted as the supreme ruler, paramount deity in
Samoan mythology
Samoan culture tells stories of many different deities. There were deities of the forest, the seas, rain, harvest, villages, and war. There were two types of deities, ''atua'', who had non-human origins, and ''aitu'', who were of human origin.
Ta ...
*
Tangaroa
Tangaroa (Māori; Takaroa in the South Island dialect; cognate with Tagaloa in Sāmoan) is the great atua of the sea, lakes, rivers, and creatures that live within them, especially fish, in Māori mythology. As Tangaroa-whakamau-tai, he exercis ...
in
Māori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori people, Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern tales of supernatural events relating to the origins of what was the ...
.
*
Tangaloa in
Tongan mythology
Tongan narrative, Tongan mythology, or ancient Tongan religion, sometimes referred to as tala-ē-fonua (meaning, "telling of the land and its people") Māhina, 'Okusitino. (1992The Tongan Traditional History Tala-Ē-Fonua A Vernacular Ecology-Cent ...
*
Kanaloa
In the traditions of ancient Hawaii, Kanaloa is a god symbolized by the squid or by the octopus, and is typically associated with Kāne. It is also an alternative name for the island of Kahoolawe.
In legends and chants, Kāne and Kanaloa are po ...
in Hawaiian mythology
References
{{Tahiti and Society Islands mythology
Tahiti and Society Islands gods
Creator gods
Tahiti and Society Islands mythology