First Man to Die

Culture-hero / first-ancestor-of-death tier, rendered demigod given his world-shaping and life-after-death powers. Landtman's 1917 folk-tales and 1927 monograph are the standard primary sources. Name variants (Sido / Sído / Hido / Iko / Soido) occur across Fly-delta and Trans-Fly versions; English-leading 'First Man to Die', vernacular Sido in term. Vital status deceased: he is precisely the prototype of human death, though he persists as lord of Adiri.

Domains

• death and the afterworld
• fertility and plants
• shapeshifting and transformation

Powers

• OPEN the road to the land of the dead
• TRANSFORM his shape across the world

Epithets

• Sido latin · Sido · oralThe first man to die, whose long journey opened and founded the road of the deadGunnar Landtman, The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea (secondary)

Relations

• spouse: Mistress of the Land of the DeadIn Adiri the first of the dead weds Dirivo, daughter of the master of the land of the dead.Landtman, The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917), Sido cycle (primary)

Sources

• Sido is the first man to die in Kiwai tradition; his death opened the road to Adiri, the western land of the dead. There he married Dirivo, his semen generated the plants of Adiri, he invented fire and built the great house of the dead; in his wanderings he changes skin and finally becomes a giant pig whose body forms the house of death.: Landtman, G. (1917). The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans. Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae 47, Helsinki. (ethnography); Landtman, G. (1927). The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea. Macmillan, London. (ethnography)