The first man (the lonely carver)
Makonde · demigod · Makonde traditional religion; continuing · demigod
The first man begins the Makonde origin narrative as a solitary 'manlike being' wandering the wilderness. To end his loneliness he carves a figure of wood and props it against a tree; when the figure becomes a living woman at sunrise, he is himself transformed into a true man. The two bathe in the Ruvuma river and become wholly human, and from their union (after the loss of children born by the river and on the lower ground) descend the Makonde of the plateau. Because the people are matrilineal, tradition centres the lineage on the woman he made rather than on him, and his defining act, the carving of life from wood, is remembered as the mythic origin of Makonde sculpture.
Domains
- origins and carving
Powers
- to carve a figure of wood that comes to life as the first woman
Relations
Sources
- Weule, Karl. Native Life in East Africa: The Results of an Ethnological Research Expedition. Translated by Alice Werner. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1909.
- Dias, Jorge, and Margot Dias. Os Macondes de Moçambique. 4 vols. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Cultural / Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1964.