Cook Islands mythology Cook Islands mythology comprises historical myths, legends, and folklore passed down by the ancient Cook Islanders over many generations. Many of the Cook Islands legends were recited through ancient songs and chants. The Cook Islands myths and ...

, Tumu-te-ana-oa was the female personification of

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the list ...

. She was the fourth child of

Vari Vari ( el, Βάρη) is a southern suburb of Athens and former municipality in East Attica, Greece along the Athens coast. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni, of which it is a municipal un ...

, the primordial

mother goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...

. Both her name and the land she occupied had to do with the production of echoes. Her name means "the cause (''tumu'') of the call or voice (''oa'') heard from caves (''ana'')". The term ''oa'' is used by people when calling out to evoke an echo. Her land was Te Parae-tea, which

Gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

translates, "The-hollow-gray-rocks". Mamae (Gill's informant) gives no more detail, but Gill recounts that Tumu-te-ana-oa frequented the caves of

Mangaia Mangaia (traditionally known as A'ua'u Enua, which means ''terraced'') is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of , from Rarotonga. Originally heavily popula ...

, where she was seen by Rangi, one of the first inhabitants. The cave in which she was first seen was Aitu-mamaoa.

References

{{reflist Mangaia mythology