Si Magamaog is the great culture-hero of the Tao, a benevolent deity reckoned among the beings of the sky who descended to instruct the ancestors in the arts of survival. Tradition credits him with teaching the people to cultivate wet taro in irrigated terraces, to build the plank boats whose prows and hulls are carved and painted with ancestral motifs, to work silver and gold into the ceremonial ornaments worn at launchings, and to observe the taboos and rites of the flying-fish season. In some accounts he acts alone; in others he is one of several teaching deities. His gifts define the twin pillars of Tao livelihood, taro horticulture on land and flying-fish harvesting at sea, and his instruction is recalled in the etiological songs performed at house- and boat-launching feasts.