The sea was bored, it was smooth and calm. She decided to move and launch her waves to attack the land. But Arai, a young and cunning Polynesian manages to curb his outburst and stop his progress.
Ta'aroa the creator god had created the sea as smooth as a huge block of ice, without ripples, without movements. But the sea was bored, because it's not fun to be an inanimate, frozen thing. She decided to travel and go beyond her borders.
She knew very well that it was forbidden to her, that she was only entitled to half the world and that the other half belonged to stones, trees and men. So she chose the darkest, blackest nights to disobey.
At night the sea began to swell gently, gently, without making waves, to cover the whole world. The water rose without waves to attack the beach and the rocks, tearing the sand and the stones. And it silently swallowed up the valleys and the mountains, with the houses of men. But under the sand, there was still sand.
And behind the stone, there was still stone. And the sea, conquered, weary, retreated each morning. Then each evening she set off again to take on the world.
Ta'aroa the Great and the other gods were not to be awakened. She therefore carefully avoided places of worship and sacrifice because they were tapu (forbidden and sacred). It passed on either side of them and turned them into islands. Though men worried, the gods who knew nothing ignored their complaints. And the sea, little by little, enlarged its domain.
Arai, a young Polynesian, who stood on the hill overlooking his village, saw the sea approaching, night after night. The gods seemed to sleep. Arai knew that soon there would be no human life. So he decided to stop the sea. But how?
He had observed that the sea seemed to carefully avoid tapu (prohibited) places. One night he went to the nearest marae (place of worship). He knew that by violating the tapu he was risking his life but he wanted to stop the sea. He took a stone from the sacred altar and it seemed to him that the stone burned his fingers. He went to hide her in a cave known only to him and he waited.
He waited until the following night. When evening came, he fetched this stone and walked towards the sea. Then, hidden behind a tree trunk, he buried the stone in the sand.
The sea soon began to rise, to advance noiselessly, to surprise the men in their sleep. She climbed, climbed, and did not see the trap. Suddenly, she covered the sacred stone. Already it was too late: it made a big wave and a big noise, the stone was angry. Ta'aroa, warned, broke his threat in a clap of thunder that stopped the sea.
It is since that time that the sea and the man are always fighting. The sea would like to swallow it up, but each time it moves, it gives birth to a multitude of noisy waves which are a signal of alarm for gods and men. Man then has time to build dykes and the sea has always been able to be pushed back in time.
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