In Cook Islands mythology, Varima-te-takere ("goddess of the beginning") also called Vari (/ˈvɑːri/ VAH-ree), was the primordial mother of the gods and mortals. According to Gill, Vari, a female spirit or demon of flesh and blood, was admitted to the lowest depth of the interior of Avaiki, a place described as resembling a vast hollow coconut shell. Such is the narrowness of her territory that her knees and chin touch, no other position being possible. Her name in full, Vari-ma-te-takere, Gill translates as "The very beginning". The word vari, however, also means "mud", and, taken in conjunction with takere (canoe bottom or keel), the name literally means "The mud at the bottom"; suggesting the mud on the bottom of Avaiki. Vari is the mud of taro swamps and connotes potential plant growth.