Huminodun

Kadazan Dusun · deity · Kadazan Dusun traditional religion; continuing · deity

Huminodun, called Ponompuan or Ponompulan in the Tambunan tradition, is the only daughter of the creators Kinoingan and Suminundu and the central sacrificial figure of Momolianism. When a famine threatens to destroy humankind, she consents to be sacrificed; her body is dismembered and planted like seed, and from it spring the staple crops on which the Kadazan-Dusun depend. Rice grows from her flesh, with coconut, sugarcane, maize, taro, ginger and other plants issuing from her head, limbs and trunk according to the different recensions. She instructs that seven stalks of rice be preserved so that her enduring spirit may be honoured, and in the myth she re-emerges from the harvest jar as a transformed maiden whose soul thereafter dwells in the grain as Bambarayon. Her sacrifice is regarded not as mere folklore but as a religious charter: it grounds the Kaamatan (Tadau Kaamatan) harvest festival and the Unduk Ngadau ceremony, and tradition names her as the founding figure of Momolianism itself. Because she is the offspring of two deities yet herself suffers death, she is best understood as a divine-descended maiden rather than an immortal high god.

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