Taʻaroa

In Society Islands accounts Taʻaroa pre-exists creation, alone in a shell or egg suspended in the empty void. He breaks the shell and uses its fragments and his own body to form the foundations of the world (rocks, sand, mountains, seas, vegetation) and brings forth other gods (for example Tane, Ru, Hina, Maui and numerous others). Some summaries explicitly state that he is 'creator of all, including himself.' Local histories record priestly reshaping of his role (for instance on Raiatea where priests elevated Taaroa from a sea god role to a world-creator), indicating variation in emphasis across islands.

Mythic accounts emphasize a cosmogenic image rather than a fixed cultic anthropomorphism: Taʻaroa initially appears as a solitary being within a shell or egg spinning in the void. In creation narratives natural features are identified as derived from his body—mountains from his backbone, oceans from his tears, fish scales from his nails, trees from his feathers, and rainbow colors from his blood—presented as poetic cosmogenic correspondences rather than a single standardized visual icon.

Taʻaroa's principal power is creative: he breaks his shell and fashions the material world, brings forth living beings and other deities, and institutes the ordering of the cosmos. After creation he delegates specific functions to other gods (for example Tane arranging the sky and setting the sun and moon) but remains described as master of all. Some variant stories record specific nurturing episodes (e.g., a tradition in which Taaroa nurtures a boy within a gourd), presented in the sources as particular narrative variants rather than a generalized recurring behavior.