stories tell how earth was created from a vast expanse of water.

One of the most well-known creation myths is the Maori story about Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother. According to this story, in the beginning, Ranginui and Papatuanuku were together in a tight embrace. Their children, the gods of the Maori, felt smothered by their closeness and forced them apart. As they separated, the sky and the earth formed, and the world as it is today was born. In some versions of the story, the gods then filled the empty space between Ranginui and Papatuanuku with the sea, creating the vast ocean that now surrounds the land.

In many ancient mythologies, the story of how Earth was created from a vast expanse of water is quite common. In the Christian Bible for example, Genesis 1:1-2 reads, "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." In the Hindu mythological tradition, the god of creation Prajapati is said to have created the world from a vast expanse of water by separating the one element into two using a bow. Other mythologies tell different versions of this story, but all of them involve some form of an immense ocean that was divided in order to create the world.