MYTHOLOGY (noun.)
1. a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
2. the study of myths
─ IN WHICH THE ADMINS GIVE YOU INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THE MANY BELIEFS OF MULTIPLE MMYTHOLOGIES
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CREATION OF THE COSMOS
Amongst the Polynesians genesis was conceived of either a process of growth or evolution from an intangible to a tangible state, or as the work of a pre-existent, omniscient creator who brought matter into existence, gave forms of the formless and set all in an established order.
The primordial state in which the creator dwelt or from which all things emerged was described as a void, nothingness, chaos, immensity, space, night or darkness, and in an attempt to free the concept even more, it was qualified as limitless without light, without form or without motion.
The belief in a pre-existent creator called Tangaloa, who lived alone in the illimitable void and made all things, was found in the western Polynesian islands of the Samoan, Tongan and Ellice (Tuvalu) Groups and on Niue, Uvea and Rotuma. Tangaloa, some said, brooded over a vast expanse of waters while his messenger, the bird Tuli, flew over the never ending ocean searching for somewhere to rest.
At last Tangaloa cast down a rock which became the island of Manu'a, the main island of the Samoan group. Next he made the other islands of the group, then Tonga and Fiji. Tuli complained of the lack of shade in these islands and Tangaloa gave him a vine to plant called the peopling vine, from which man was made.
Other creation myths of the evolutionary type were completely personalised. The two elements became an earth mother and a sky father, who were the progenitors of the gods, the element, the lands and all living things. In myths of this type, the first-born sons of the primal pair played an active part in creation: separating their parents, raising the sky and creating lands, plants and man.
The names and attributes of the greatest of these, the gods Tane, Tangaroa, Tu and Rongo were known throughout all of Polynesia except the west, where Tangaroa or Tangaloa alone was known, not as one of the pantheon of great gods, but as the sole creator.
