The First Woman

The first woman is the female origin of the sacred flutes and, in the wider Baruya myth, of nearly all the powers the men now claim. Women existed before men, and it was a woman who made the first flute; she is also credited with inventing the bow, the cultivated plants, life itself, and the initiations. Because her creativity was held to be as destructive as it was fertile, the men seized these things from her by force or cunning, above all the flutes, which they hid and refashioned as the secret instruments of the male cult. The flutes keep the trace of their maker in their secret name, namboula-mala, which the men also use for the woman's vagina, so that the men's holiest object is understood to hold the generative power of the woman from whom it was taken. Sources vary on whether this primordial woman bears a personal name or stands simply as 'the woman' of the myth.

Parentage

• maternal: Moon

Domains

• female creative power
• origin of the flutes
• origin of cultivation and initiation

Powers

• invent the first sacred flute
• originate the bow, cultivated plants, and the initiations

Epithets

• Mistress of the Flutes — the woman who first owned the sacred flutesGodelier, Maurice. The Making of Great Men. Cambridge University Press, 1986. (primary)

Relations

• child: MoonAs the first woman she issues from the Moon.Godelier, Maurice. 'Bodies, kinship and power(s) in the Baruya culture.' HAU 1(1), 2011. (primary)
• companion: DjivaamakwePrimordial female counterpart of the first man, from whom the men take the flutes she had made.Godelier, Maurice. The Metamorphoses of Kinship. Verso, 2011. (primary)

Sources

• Baruya myth holds that women existed before men and that a woman invented the first flute, along with the bow, cultivated plants, and the initiations.: Godelier, Maurice. The Making of Great Men. Cambridge University Press, 1986. (primary); Godelier, Maurice. The Metamorphoses of Kinship. Verso, 2011. (primary)
• The men took the flute from the woman, and the flutes are secretly named for the woman's vagina.: Godelier, Maurice. 'Myth and History.' New Left Review I/69, 1971. (primary)