Porokmi Yamphami, the Fashioner of Humankind
Kirati · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
In Limbu (Yakthung) cosmogony Porokmi Yamphami is the artisan-creator who carries out the making of the world and its people at the direction of the supreme goddess Tagera Ningwaphuma. His repeated failures to give speech and life to images moulded of gold, silver and diamond, and his casting of the shot-stone to break a devastating drought, are recited episodes of the Mundhum. He is distinct from the Rai sky-father Paruhang, belonging specifically to the Limbu creation cycle.
Children
Domains
- creation of humankind
- rain and drought
Powers
- to fashion the first human forms from precious matter
- to end drought by hurling the sacred stone
Relations
- subordinate to: Omnipresent Supreme Knowledge-MotherHe acts throughout as the executant of the supreme knowledge-mother, undertaking creation only on her instruction.Chaitanya Subba, The Culture and Religion of Limbus (Kathmandu: K.B. Subba, 1995) (secondary)
- creator of: Mujingna Kheyongna, the First HumanIn the Limbu Mundhum his fashioning labour culminates in the making of the first living human, Mujingna Kheyongna.Iman Singh Chemjong, History and Culture of the Kirat People, Parts I–II (Kathmandu: Kirat Yakthung Chumlung, 4th ed. 2003 [1967]) (secondary)
Sources
- Porokmi Yamphami is the Limbu demiurge of the Mundhum who, on Tagera Ningwaphuma's command, fashioned the first human bodies and cast the shot-stone that ended the primordial drought.: Iman Singh Chemjong, History and Culture of the Kirat People, Parts I–II (Kathmandu: Kirat Yakthung Chumlung, 4th ed. 2003 [1967]) (secondary); Ramesh Kumar Limbu, 'Performance in Limbu Mundhum: A Study of Cultural Representation,' Tribhuvan University Journal 30, no. 2 (2016): 39–58 (secondary)