Tangaroa
Rapa Nui · deity · mythic · deity
Tangaroa is the Rapa Nui form of the great Polynesian sea-god, but on Easter Island he is remembered above all as the ancestral chief who came from Hiva in the shape of a seal with a human face and voice. Killed and placed in the earth-oven, his flesh would not cook — proof of his mana. He is the brother of the rain-god Hiro and, in the royal genealogy recorded by Métraux (1940:127), the father of Rongo and, with Rongo, a divine ancestor of the first king Hotu Matu'a.
Children
Domains
- sea
- ancestry
Powers
- Body that will not cook
- Take the form of a seal
- Flesh that will not cook in the earth-oven
Relations
- sibling: Hiro
- father of: Rongo
- ancestor of: Hotu Matu'a
- equated with: Tangaroa
- equated with: Kanaloa
- equated with: Tagaloa
- equated with: Ta'aroa
- equated with: Tangaloa 'Eitumatupu'a
- equated with: Tangaroa
- equated with: Takaroa
- equated with: Tanaoa