The Mythology Book

316

B

efore the cosmos was

created, there was just a

blank void. Amid this

expanse of nothingness floated a

huge egg-shaped shell. Inside was

the feathered creator god, Ta’aroa,

who had no mother or father.

Eventually, Ta’aroa grew tired of

this confined existence. He forced

open his egg, cleaving it in two,

and crawled out to the edge of the

broken shell. When he called out to

the darkness, there was no reply—

the only sound was Ta’aroa’s voice.

Growing up alone on the shell from

which he had emerged, Ta’aroa

became frustrated at having no

one to do his bidding, so he

resolved to bring creation and

life to the void.

Ta’aroa’s first action was to

push up one half of the broken

shell, which formed the dome of

the sky. He then used the other half

of the shell to make the rocks that

formed the earth’s foundation. To

create a habitat for life, Ta’aroa

used his own flesh to make soil

and his innards to make the

clouds. Ta’aroa’s tears then formed

the waters of the earth, filling up

the oceans, lakes, and rivers. His

backbone became the mountain

ranges and his ribs their ridges.

MASTER OF

EVERYTHING

THAT IS

TA’AROA GIVES BIRTH TO THE GODS

IN BRIEF

THEME

The cosmos is made from

a shell

SOURCE

Oral tradition, transcribed in

The World of the Polynesians:

Seen through Their Myths and

Legends, Poetry and Art,

Antony Alpers, 1987.

SETTING

The beginning of time in

Tahitian mythology.

KEY FIGURES

Ta’aroa The creator god,

originator of the entire cosmos.

Tane Ta’aroa’s son, the god

of light and forests. In some

places, Tane is a woman

rather than a man.

Tu Ta’aroa’s son, the god of

war and craftsmen.

Ta’aroa creates other gods and

human beings in this wooden statue

(ca. 17th–18th century) from Rurutu,

one of the Austral Islands in what

is now French Polynesia.

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OCEANIA 317

See also: Pan Gu and the creation of the world 214–15 ■ Viracocha the creator 256–57 ■ Tane and Hine-titama 318–19

Ta’aroa’s feathers made vegetation

and his guts became lobsters,

shrimps, and eels. He used his

toe- and fingernails to give sealife

its shells and scales.

Finally, his blood became

the glowing colors in the sky

and in rainbows. Great Ta’aroa

had used his entire body except

for his head; that part remained

sacred to himself.

The god’s children

Ta’aroa then summoned forth a

multitude of other gods from his

body (which is why he is often

depicted with them crawling over

him). One of his children, Tane,

illuminated creation by hanging

the sun, moon, and stars in the sky.

Tane became the god of peace and

beauty, and sometimes the god of

forests and birds.

Of all Ta’aroa’s children, the

most able craftsman was Tu, who

had helped his father create more

species of plants and animals to

fill the world. Ta’aroa then made

the first man and woman and

persuaded them to procreate.

Ta’aroa had created the world with

seven levels, placing humanity

on the bottom one. Much to his

delight, people multiplied more and

more quickly. As they shared their

space with plants and animals,

they soon occupied all the levels

of the earth.

Inside the shell

When Ta’aroa had finished

the task of creation, he had a

revelation: everything that existed

in the cosmos was contained in

a shell. He had been contained

within a shell, the sky was the

shell of heavenly bodies, and Earth

the shell of everything that lived

there. The shell of all humanity

was the womb of the woman from

whom they had emerged.

Despite this awareness, Ta’aroa

knew that everything still belonged

to him. Although he had come out

of a shell, he was still the supreme

creator of all. ■

Carved wooden tiki keep watch

as a Russian sailor explores a morai

(cemetery) on the island of Nuku

Hiva, in this engraving from ca. 18 0 7.

Ta’aroa in Polynesian cultures

Name Place Role

Society Islands (including Tahiti)

Hawaii

Samoa

Tonga

New Zealand

The creator deity.

A sea deity, and a god of death.

Creator of the universe.

Ancestor of a long-running dynasty.

God of the sea.

Ta’aroa

Kanaloa

Tagaloa

Tangaloa

Tangaroa

Tiki: Polynesian wood carvings

Polynesia encompasses over

1,000 islands that form a

triangle in the southern Pacific,

from Hawaii at the peak to New

Zealand in the southwest and

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the

southeast. The indigenous

peoples of these islands

generally share the belief that

gods are all-pervasive and can

take many other forms, such as

humans, animals, or features of

the landscape. People present

offerings to the carvings that

depict these forms. These

carvings are known as tiki and

are made across Polynesia. In

some parts of Polynesia, Tiki was

also the name of the first man to

be created. Tiki can be made in a

range of sizes, from large human-

shaped statues to pendants worn

as necklaces.

When Europeans began

colonizing Polynesia, they tried

to suppress traditional culture

and religious practices, destroying

many tiki in the process. However,

tiki statues are still made today

throughout Polynesia.

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