Taghar

Taghar is a sky-dwelling being, the local reflex of the Tagaro known across the northern New Hebrides on Ambae, Maewo and Pentecost, and reported in the northern and small-island districts within Malekula's cultural reach. Unlike the richly storied culture-hero Ambat, he is a remote and lightly narrated figure, invoked as a distant originator rather than made the subject of a developed cycle. Sources differ on whether he is properly indigenous to Malekula or was known there chiefly through the constant traffic with the neighbouring islands, where such sky-beings are central; on Malekula itself the creative and civilising roles that elsewhere belong to Tagaro are largely gathered onto Ambat.

Domains

• sky
• creation

Powers

• dwells in the sky above the island
• stands at the origin of the present order

Sources

• A sky-dwelling being named Taghar, cognate with the Tagaro of Ambae, Maewo and Pentecost, is known in the northern and small-island districts within Malekula's orbit; sources differ on whether he belongs to the indigenous Malekula pantheon or was known chiefly through contact with the neighbouring islands where the culture-hero Ambat holds the central place.: R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-Lore (1891) (secondary); John Layard, Stone Men of Malekula: Vao (1942) (secondary)