Tagaloa

Tagaloa (Tagaloalagi, Tagaloa-faʻatutupu-nuʻu), the supreme self-existent creator of Samoan religion — the Polynesian *Taŋaloa in his Samoan form — who stood alone in the primordial Expanse (Pō / Ilu) and made the heavens, the islands, the sea, fresh water, and humankind, and is reckoned the chief and progenitor of the gods. Kinless by attestation (self-existent) — see SOLITARY flag. Documented in the Samoan creation chant (Fraser's translation), Turner, Stair and Krämer.

Domains

• creation and cosmogony
• sky and heavens
• supreme sovereignty over the gods
• origin of the islands and mankind

Powers

• Make the heavens, the lands, the sea, and fresh water out of the primordial Expanse
• Bring the Samoan islands into being — flinging down rocks / fishing them up from the deep
• Form the first people and animate them with life

Relations

• equated with: Tangaroa
• equated with: Kanaloa
• equated with: Ta'aroa
• equated with: Tangaloa 'Eitumatupu'a
• equated with: Tangaroa
• equated with: Tangaroa
• equated with: Takaroa
• equated with: Tanaoa

Sources

• G. Turner, Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before (London, 1884), the creation traditions
• A. Krämer, Die Samoa-Inseln (1902/03; Eng. The Samoa Islands, trans. T. Verhaaren), I
• J. Fraser, 'The Samoan Story of Creation,' Journal of the Polynesian Society 1 (1892): Tagaloa-faʻatutupu-nuʻu dwelling and creating in the Expanse
• J. B. Stair, Old Samoa (1897), on Tagaloa as chief and progenitor of the gods