Subut
Iatmul · numen · Iatmul traditional religion; continuing · numen
Subut is a primordial bird of Iatmul creation tradition, remembered especially at Yamok in the Middle Sepik. In the myth he intervenes to protect a woman from a crocodile-man who sought to violate her, and afterward helps her tend the two eggs she lays; from these hatch a human being and a malevolent crocodile-man, an origin of the enduring opposition between people and the predatory crocodile. Because he sheltered the woman and her offspring, Subut is honoured as a protector of women and, by extension, of the secret knowledge that Iatmul tradition holds women to possess, and his image is carved surrounding female figures for that reason.
Domains
- protection
- sacred knowledge
Powers
- shield the primal woman
Epithets
- protector of women
Sources
- Oral tradition of Yamok village, Middle Sepik, documented in ethnographic descriptions of the Subut/Sabut carving.
- 'Deconstructing a Popular Iatmul/Sawos Sculptural Design' (study of the Sepik protector-bird motif).