Nambweapa'w, the Cassowary Mother, is the primal ancestress of the central Ilahita origin myth. A hunter discovers cassowaries that remove their feathered skins to bathe and garden as women, and by stealing and concealing Nambweapa'w's skin he forces her to remain a woman and marry him. She bears many children, who become the forebears of the peoples of the world, until she recovers the hidden skin, resumes cassowary form and departs into the forest, leaving instruction and estrangement behind her. The tale accounts for the origin of the sexes, for death, and for the unequal fortunes of peoples; Tuzin gives it in full as the myth behind the title The Cassowary's Revenge, reading the men's cult as a defence against, and appropriation of, the maternal power the cassowary embodies.