Ta'aroa

Tahitian · deity · primordial · Recorded classification

Ta'aroa (the Society-Islands Tangaroa) is the supreme creator of Tahitian religion. The Orsmond/Henry cosmogony has him existing alone, self-created and parentless, revolving in his shell Rumia in the lightless void; he cracks the shell, raises one half as the dome of the sky and lays the other as the rock and soil of the earth, then forms land and living things out of his own body — backbone into mountains, ribs into cliffs, flesh into soil, blood into the rainbow and the red of creatures, tears into the seas, nails into fish-scales, the down shaken off him into the trees. From his body he builds the first 'god's house', the model of the marae, and then summons the artisans who sculpt Tāne and the other great gods. Beneath this supreme-creator role lies his older pan-Polynesian aspect as god of the sea and of fishing. Flagged SOLITARY: Ta'aroa is self-existent, with no parent attested; his only kin-ties are downward, to the gods he makes.

Parentage

Recorded default; alternative parentage accounts are listed separately below.

No parents recorded in the default.

Parentage accounts

Each account is a separate source claim. The parentage and children listed outside these accounts use the recorded default. Selecting an account in the interactive app updates its lineage, descent classification and inherited-power candidates. Linked pedigree accounts are selected together; other records retain their recorded parentage. Claims of ancestry are not proof of biological descent or attested powers.

Children

Names and tradition associations

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Sources

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