Wobowi
Iatmul · mortal · Iatmul traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Wobowi is the mythic mortal at the centre of the eastern Iatmul deluge story. Deceived by a cousin into killing his own wife, and then denied the village's participation in his mourning, he took shell valuables and animals to the swamp home of the crocodile-spirit Mendangumeli and begged for destruction. Following the spirit's instructions he raised a platform on a coconut palm and gathered his family and possessions upon it; the flood that came drowned everyone else, and the crocodile bore him to dry land. Wobowi thus embodies the Iatmul theme of grief and slighted kinship escalating into world-ending catastrophe, a human counterpart to the ancestral spirit whose waters he releases.
Domains
- death and mourning
Powers
- summon the flood in vengeance
Relations
- ally: MendangumeliSupplicant of the crocodile-spirit, whom he petitions and who spares him from the flood.Silverman, Eric K. 2016. Journal of American Folklore 129(512): 171-202. (secondary)
Sources
- Wobowi is the mortal protagonist of the Iatmul flood myth, who summons the deluge through the spirit-crocodile Mendangumeli and survives it.: Silverman, Eric K. 2016. 'The Waters of Mendangumeli.' Journal of American Folklore 129(512): 171-202. (secondary)