Ta'aroa (Tangararoa) is the Supreme Being, the noncreated Creator of the universe. He came forth from a shell (Rumia), which later became the world.
Ta'aroa was the ancestor of all the gods; he made everything. From time immemorial was the
great Ta'aroa, Tahi-tumu (The-origin). Ta-aroa developed himself in solitude; he was his own
parent, having no father and no mother. . .
Ta'aroa sat in his shell in darkness from eternity. The shell was like an egg revolving in endless
space, with no sky, no land, no sea, no moon, no stars. All was darkness, it was continuous
thick darkness. . . . The record then proceeds to describe Ta'aroa's breaking his shell, which
became the sky, his swimming in empty space and retirement into a new shell which, after he
had again emerged. . . he took. . . . for the great foundation of the world, for stratum rock and for soil for the world.
And the shell Rumia that he opened first, became his house, the dome of the god's sky, which
was a confined sky, enclosing the world then forming
