In the beginning, there was no sky, no earth, no sea. Only Ta’aroa, alone in the darkness, enclosed in his cosmic shell named Rumia.

After ages of silence, Ta’aroa broke his shell. From its upper part he made the sky; from its lower part, the earth. Then he shaped the world with his own flesh: his back became the mountains and rocks, his spine the mountain ranges, his tears the oceans, rivers and clouds. From his sacred body were finally born the atua (the gods), then humankind.

Ta’aroa - Tangaroa elsewhere in Polynesia - is the original god, the one from whom everything flows. His legend, recorded as early as the 19th century, is one of the most complete cosmogonies in the Pacific.