2.1 A world of stories

The World That Came From a Shell

Each of the Pacific islands has its own story for how the world was made. In Tahiti they said that it began with a shell. There was no Earth, no land, no sea, no time – just a single shell. And in that shell was a single god: Ta’aroa.

Ta’aroa had been curled up all alone in his shell for all of eternity until one day he decided to stretch his arms and legs, and step outside. He slid out carefully and stood gazing at the enormous, empty expanse of the universe. He called out across the dark nothingness, but there was no reply. He was all alone. He got back into his shell, curled himself into a ball, and stayed there for another eternity.

Eventually he came out again. He was still alone and, although he would not have admitted it even if there had been anyone to admit it to, he was lonely. Suddenly, he had an idea. What if he and his shell could create a whole new world? That way, he would never be alone again. He broke off the curved side of his shell and held it up to make the sky. Then he cupped his hands together to make the Earth and everything in it.

Across the ocean on the island of Aotearoa, the ancient people told a different story. Here, people said that the sky, named Ranginui, and the Earth, named Papatūānuku, were parents to many children, who lived squeezed inside the darkness between them. There was Tūmatauenga, the god of war, Tāwhirimātea, the god of weather, and Tāne, the god of the forests and birds. There was Rogno, the god of growing food, and Haumia, the god of gathering food. There was Tangaroa, too, their name for Ta’aroa. Tangaroa was the god who created scaly creatures, like fish and lizards. But none of the children could be the gods of any of these things yet, because nothing existed expect the sky father and the Earth mother and their children, and the darkness.

As the children got older, they grew tired of living in darkness. They dreamed of a different world, where there would be light and space to stretch out their limbs. In whispers, so that their parents would not hear, they planned their escape. Tūmatauenga spoke first. He was angry that his parents had kept them cooped up in the dark all this time. He wanted to kill them. But the other siblings refused to do it. Tāne had another idea – they could push their parents apart and free themselves.

Rongo reached up and tried to push the sky further upwards, away from the Earth mother, but their grip on each other was too tight. Then Tangaroa tried. It was as if their parents each has as many arms as an octopus, and held tightly to one another with each limb. Eventually, Tāne tried, lying on his back and pushing with both of his legs against the sky until a tiny chink of light opened up between their parents. Stars rushed in, first one by one and then thousands all at once, and Tāne stacked them up into pillars so that their father was pushed further and further up into the sky away from their mother.

The siblings blinked, wide-eyed, at a light they had never seen before. When Tāne was finished, he went up to the sky and sat with his father. As a way of making amends for having separated him from the Earth other, he collected together all the lights that he could find and hung them in the night sky. These stars, he thought, would make a suitable outfit for his father to wear.

The other siblings set about building the rest of the world. All of them, that is, except Tāwhirimātea, who was angry. He had not joined in the escape plan, and was upset that the only life he had ever known had changed forever. He joined his father in the sky and started to attack the trees to punish the forest god Tāne, sending harsh winds that blew away the leaves. Then he set on Tangaroa, who fled into the ocean and became the god of the sea. Every day the sea, Tangaroa, would flee away from his brother, Tāwhirimātea, and then return. This created the tides.

Almost as soon as the sea and the land had been created, they filled up with humans – though no one could ever agree on exactly how the humans came to be. More and more humans filled up the islands, bringing love and life, and friendship and families. Very soon the humans had spread all across the world. The endless darkness did not return. And Ta’aroa would never know loneliness like the eternity he had spent all alone in his shell ever again.