Raho is the great founding ancestor and culture-hero of Rotuma. In the central origin legend, recorded by Gardiner in 1898 and again by MacGregor in 1932, he was a chief from Samoa who, after a family quarrel, filled two baskets with soil, embarked with his household, and on reaching a bare rock in the open ocean poured out the earth to raise the island of Rotuma. His daughters figure in several episodes of the cycle, including the dispute over a shellfish that prompts his departure. After establishing the island Raho was challenged for precedence by the incoming chief Tokainiua; defeated in their contest, he surrendered the main island and withdrew to the small islet of Hatana, which is regarded as the most sacred of the group precisely because its potency is held to derive from him.