First Woman

The First Woman is the primal ancestress of Gimi cosmogony, paired with her brother, the First Man. Their incestuous union is the origin of humankind, and her first menstruation is the mythic prototype of women's monthly bleeding. Sources link her body to the origin of the moon, which in several tellings is her concealed firstborn son. She is closely identified in Gimi thought with the cassowary, the wingless maternal bird of the forest, so that the boundary between the first woman and the primal cassowary-mother is deliberately blurred.

Children

• The Moon

Domains

• origins
• menstruation

Powers

• engender humankind through primal union
• shed the first menstrual blood

Epithets

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

Relations

• sibling: First ManGillison, Gillian. 'Incest and the Atom of Kinship.' Ethos 15, no. 2 (1987): 166-202. (secondary)
• spouse: First ManGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
• child: The MoonIn tellings that make the moon her firstborn son.Gillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)

Sources

• Gimi origin myth centres on a primal brother and sister whose incestuous union founds humanity; the sister is the first woman and first mother.: Gillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary); Gillison, Gillian. 'Incest and the Atom of Kinship.' Ethos 15, no. 2 (1987): 166-202. (secondary)