The Samoans' supreme deity. He incorporates elements of the gods KANALOA, RANGI and LONO from other Polynesian island groups. Tangaloa rules both the sky and the sea, and created the nine heavens in which the remainder of the Samoan deities live. As creator god he fetches the sun- and moon-fishes out of the sea and sets them in the heavens, throwing boulders down from his sky-realm and fishing others from the bottom of the sea to make islands of dry land. His daughter/lover SINA, goddess of love and fertility, at whose request (in the form of a bird) he formed dry land, brought down from heaven a creeper-vine which rotted. Out of the worms that issued forth, Tangaloa made the first humans. In the Gambier Islands he is Tagaroa or ATEA-TAGAROA, or sometimes TANGAROA-HURUPAPA, but is not the chief god (see also PAPA)
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