The Mythlok Perspective

In Mythlok’s Perspective, Varima-te-takere represents one of the purest expressions of creation without duality. She exists before balance, before conflict, before even light itself. Her story echoes the Greek Gaia and the Māori Papatūānuku, yet differs in its striking isolation—she creates not through union but through self-division. This places her closer to abstract origin forces than anthropomorphic deities. Across cultures, such figures reveal a shared human instinct to trace life back to a singular, fertile source.

Varima-te-takere

Introduction

Varima-te-takere is a primordial mother and creator figure in the traditional mythology of Mangaia in the Cook Islands. Often shortened to Vari, she occupies a unique place in the creation story because she exists before the better-known gods of the Mangaian cosmological tradition. Her name is commonly translated as “the very beginning,” while vari is also associated with mud and takere with the bottom or base.

Varima-te-takere lives in Avaiki, the underworld of the Mangaian creation tradition. Avaiki is imagined as a vast hollow coconut shell, with Varima-te-takere occupying its deepest and narrowest part. Her existence there represents the beginning of creation, before the ordered world above has fully emerged.

Unlike creation stories in which a male and female deity produce the first generation of gods together, Varima-te-takere creates her children from her own body. She removes pieces of her flesh and shapes them into living beings, producing six primordial children. Through them, different parts of the emerging cosmos acquire their own identities and functions.

The story has been preserved through Mangaian oral traditions, chants and early ethnographic records, particularly the work of the missionary and scholar William Wyatt Gill. It provides an important window into how one Polynesian community understood the origins of the gods, the movement from darkness into an ordered world, and the beginning of divine genealogy.

Physical Traits

Varima-te-takere is not described through the elaborate physical attributes often associated with later gods and legendary beings. Instead, her appearance is closely connected to the unusual environment in which she exists. In the Mangaian creation account, she is described as a goddess of flesh and blood living in an extraordinarily confined space at the bottom of Avaiki. Her knees touch her chin, leaving her unable to stretch out or assume another position. The image presents her as an ancient, enclosed presence existing at the very foundation of the cosmos.

The setting is just as important as her physical form. Avaiki is imagined as the inside of a huge hollow coconut shell, with different levels extending upward from its deepest point. Varima-te-takere occupies the lowest part, placing her literally at the beginning and bottom of the mythic universe.

Her name also connects her with vari, or mud. This association is particularly significant in a traditional society where fertile mud and taro swamps were closely connected with nourishment and growth. Rather than being portrayed as a distant celestial creator, Varima-te-takere is therefore connected with the earthy and material beginnings of life. A traditional creation song recorded in the late eighteenth century also describes Varima-te-takere eating raw taro at appointed times. Such details give the otherwise cosmic figure a distinctly physical and earthly character.

Family

Varima-te-takere is the mother of six primordial beings who become important figures in Mangaian cosmology. Their creation is unusual because she does not require a partner to produce them. Instead, she takes pieces of flesh from her own body and forms them into her children.

From one side of her body came three gods. The first was Avatea, also known as Vatea. He is described as the first man and later becomes the father of gods and humans. In traditional accounts, Avatea has a distinctive half-human and half-fish form before developing into a more fully human divine figure. He is also associated with light and the upper regions of the cosmos.

The second was Tinirau, a deity associated with the sea and marine life. His place within the first generation of gods establishes the importance of the ocean in the emerging cosmological order. The third was Tango. Rather than describing him as a god of birds, as some secondary accounts do, the Mangaian tradition associates Tango with support and places him at Enua-kura. His lineage is also connected with fishing traditions.

From the other side of Varima-te-takere’s body came three female deities. Tumu-te-ana-oa is described in connection with the echo of rocks. Raka is associated with the winds, representing one of the forces that shape the natural world. The sixth child is Tu-metua, who holds a particularly close relationship with her mother. Varima-te-takere keeps her near in Avaiki, and Tu-metua is associated with sacred traditions and the fourteenth night of the lunar cycle.

Together, these six children form the first important generation of gods in the Mangaian creation account. Their individual associations help transform the undifferentiated world of the beginning into a cosmos containing light, sea, wind, land and other natural forces.

Other Names

Varima-te-takere is commonly shortened to Vari, a name that appears in Mangaian chants and traditional accounts. The full name is generally translated as “the very beginning,” emphasizing her position at the start of the cosmological sequence. The individual elements of the name have also attracted scholarly attention. Vari is associated with mud, while takere can refer to the bottom or base. This creates a strong connection between Varima-te-takere and the lowest point of Avaiki, where she resides.

The association with mud is especially meaningful in the context of taro cultivation. Fertile wetland environments were essential to traditional life, making mud a natural image for both nourishment and the beginnings of growth. The name therefore carries both a cosmological and physical dimension. Varima-te-takere is “the beginning,” but she is also associated with the deep, earthy foundation from which that beginning emerges.

Powers and Abilities

Varima-te-takere’s defining ability is creation. Rather than ruling over a particular natural element such as the sea, wind or sky, she represents the act from which those later domains emerge. Her most distinctive creative act is the generation of her six children from her own flesh. This makes her a self-generating creator figure whose body becomes the raw material for the first divine generation. The story does not require an external father for these first beings, placing the source of creation entirely within Varima-te-takere herself.

Her importance therefore lies less in supernatural abilities such as combat or transformation and more in her position at the beginning of the divine order. Through her children, different parts of the cosmos acquire their own rulers and associations. Avatea’s emergence is particularly important because he becomes the father of gods and humans and is associated with the movement from the darkness of Avaiki toward the ordered world above. Tinirau, Tango and the other children similarly establish relationships with the sea, natural forces and different aspects of the environment.

Varima-te-takere can consequently be understood as a primordial source rather than a conventional interventionist deity. Her greatest act has already taken place: she has brought the first generation of divine beings into existence.

Modern Day Influence

Varima-te-takere remains an important figure for understanding traditional Mangaian cosmology and the wider study of Cook Islands mythology. Much of what is known about her today comes from the preservation of oral traditions and chants by early scholars and collectors, particularly William Wyatt Gill, whose nineteenth-century writings recorded extensive Mangaian traditions.

Later Polynesian scholars, including Te Rangi Hīroa, also examined the figure within wider discussions of Polynesian creation traditions. Their work helped preserve and interpret a body of mythology that had previously been transmitted primarily through oral tradition.

Today, Varima-te-takere is more commonly encountered through cultural scholarship, mythology research, educational material and discussions of Polynesian cosmology than through an active religious cult. Her story remains valuable because it preserves a distinctly Mangaian explanation for how the first gods came into existence.

Her creation story also provides an interesting example of the diversity within Polynesian traditions. Although other Polynesian cultures have their own primordial parents and creator figures, the Mangaian account stands out for its image of a solitary mother at the bottom of a coconut-shell underworld creating her children directly from her own body. For modern readers, Varima-te-takere offers more than another story about the origin of the gods. She represents the beginning of a particular cultural understanding of existence, one in which creation emerges from darkness, confinement and the physical substance of the creator herself.

Source

Gill, W. W. (1876). Myths and songs from the South Pacific. Henry S. King & Co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varima-te-takere

Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. (n.d.). Polynesian myths – Ranginui. https://teara.govt.nz/en/ranginui-the-sky/page-3

Godchecker. (n.d.). VARIMA-TE-TAKERE – the Mangaian Goddess of Populating. https://www.godchecker.com/polynesian-mythology/VARIMA-TE-TAKERE/

Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Varima-te-takere. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varima-te-takere

Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Cook Islands mythology. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Islands_mythology

Buck, P. H. (1930). Mangaian society. Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

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Tregear, E. (1891). The Māori-Polynesian comparative dictionary. L. Swanson. https://www.godchecker.com/polynesian-mythology/list-of-names/