Ta, symbol for the element tantalum.

vers de société(French; “society verse”)

Witty, typically ironic, light verse, written with polish and ease of expression to amuse a sophisticated audience. It has flourished in cultured societies, particularly in court circles and literary salons, from the time of Anacreon (6th century BC). Trivial subjects are treated in an intimate, witty manner, and even when social issues form the theme, the light mood prevails. The poetry of Ogden Nash, with its theme of self-ironic adult helplessness, is a 20th-century example.

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Port town (pop., 2000: 16,673), capital of the Faeroe Islands, Denmark. Located on Strømø Island, it was founded in the 13th century. During World War II the British occupied Tórshavn as a defense against German forces in Denmark. It is home to about one-third of the population of the Faeroe Islands. Its main industries are fishing and knitwear.

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Metallic chemical element, one of the transition elements, chemical symbol Ta, atomic number 73. It is a dense, hard, unreactive, silvery gray metal with an extremely high melting point (5,425 °F [2,996 °C]). Relatively rare, it occurs native in a few places. It is difficult to separate from niobium, the element above it in the periodic table, with which it shares many properties. The most important uses are in electrolytic capacitors, corrosion-resistant chemical equipment, dental and surgical instruments, tools, catalysts, components of electron tubes, rectifiers, and prostheses. Its compounds are relatively unimportant commercially; tantalum carbide is used in machine tools and dies.

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or Li Ta-chao

(born Oct. 6, 1888, Hebei province, China—died April 28, 1927, Beijing) One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chief librarian and professor of history at Beijing University, Li became inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution and began to study and lecture on Marxism. In 1921 the study groups Li had created formally became the CCP. Li helped the new party carry out the policy of the Communist International (see Comintern) and cooperated with the Nationalist Party of Sun Yat-sen. His career was cut short when he was seized and hanged by the warlord Zhang Zuolin, but his ideas of a revolution of the impoverished peasantry were brought to fruition by Mao Zedong.

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Ta'aroa is the supreme creator god in the mythology of French Polynesia. While the use of the 'eta is appropriate given the pronunciation of his name, as is typically the case with Tahitian words it is often omitted in practice.

The Myth

In the beginning, there was only Ta'aroa, creator of all, including himself. He waited alone in his shell, which appeared as an egg spinning in the empty endless void of the time before the sky, before the earth, before the moon, before the sun, before the stars. He was bored, alone in his shell, and so he cracked it with a shake of his body and slid out of its confines, finding everything somber and silent outside, finding himself alone in the nothingness.

So he broke the shell into pieces and from them formed the rocks and the sand, and the foundation of all the world, Tumu-Nui. With his backbone he created the mountains; with his tears he filled the oceans, the lakes, the rivers; with his fingernails and toenails he made the scales that cover the fish and the turtles; with his feathers he created the trees and the bushes; with his blood he colored the rainbow.

Ta'aroa then called forth artists who came with their baskets filled with To'i, so that they might sculpt Tane, the first god. Then came Ru, Hina, Maui, and hundreds of others. Tane decorated the sky with stars and hung the sun in the sky to illuminate the day and the moon to illuminate the night. Ta'aroa decided then to complete his work by creating man.

He divided the world into 7 levels. On the bottommost level lived man, and he multiplied quickly, which delighted Ta'aroa. Sharing the space as he did with creatures and plants of all sorts, it was not long before man felt crowded in his space and so decided to expand his domain by opening a hole into the level above his. Man continued in this fashion, filling one level and then climbing to the next, one level at a time, until all levels were occupied.

And so man filled the earth, but still all belonged to Ta'aroa, who was master of all.

See also

• Tangaroa, the equivalent god in Māori mythology.