the First Woman from the Tree

In the central Herero emergence narrative, the first human couple and their cattle came out of the omumborombonga, the leadwood tree (Combretum imberbe) said to stand between the Kaokoveld and Ovamboland. The woman of this primordial couple is recorded under the names Kamangarunga or Kamungarunga, wife of the first man (Kamangundu, or Mukuru 'the Old One'). From her sprang the Herero and, in some versions, the Ovambo, Nama, and Tswana peoples, making her the mythic ancestress of the matrilineal descent lines (omaanda) central to Herero social organization. Herero travellers traditionally greeted leadwood trees with respectful words and offerings of twigs in memory of this ancestral origin.

Domains

• human origins
• ancestral motherhood

Powers

• to bear the ancestral lines from which the Herero and neighbouring peoples descend

Relations

• consort of: the First Man from the TreeShe is the wife of the first man who came out of the omumborombonga tree with her, recorded variously as Kamangundu or as Mukuru the Old One.Harold Scheub, A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller, Oxford University Press, 2000 (secondary); Heinrich Vedder, The Native Tribes of South West Africa, Cape Town: Cape Times, 1928 (secondary)

Sources

• Kamangarunga is the First Woman of Herero myth, who emerged with the first man and the cattle from the sacred omumborombonga tree and became the ancestress of the Herero people.: Heinrich Vedder, The Native Tribes of South West Africa, Cape Town: Cape Times, 1928 (secondary); Harold Scheub, A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller, Oxford University Press, 2000 (secondary); J. Irle, Die Herero: Ein Beitrag zur Landes-, Volks- und Missionskunde, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1906 (secondary)