First Man

The First Man is the primal brother whose union with his sister, the First Woman, begins human descent in Gimi myth. His role is bound up with the men's cult and the sacred flutes: the mythology of the first man belongs to the same complex that, in the stolen-flutes narrative, transfers the flute-spirits from women's keeping into men's. Gimi cosmology grants him no supreme or creator status; he is a founding ancestor rather than a high god.

Children

• The Moon

Domains

• origins

Powers

• found human descent with the first woman

Epithets

• the first manGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: First WomanGillison, Gillian. 'Incest and the Atom of Kinship.' Ethos 15, no. 2 (1987): 166-202. (secondary)
• spouse: First WomanGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
• child: The MoonWhere the moon is counted the offspring of the primal union.Gillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)

Sources

• The first man is the primal brother of the first woman in the Gimi cosmogonic myth of sibling incest.: Gillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)