The first man (the lonely carver)
Makonde · demigod · Makonde traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
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
- spouse: The primordial carved Woman (first ancestress of the Makonde)He carves the figure that becomes the first Woman and takes her as his partner; together they are the primal couple from whom the Makonde descend.Weule, Karl. Native Life in East Africa: The Results of an Ethnological Research Expedition. Translated by Alice Werner. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1909. (secondary)
Sources
- The first man is the lonely primordial being of the Makonde origin myth who carves the wooden figure that becomes the first woman and is thereby transformed into a man and made the founding father of the people.: Weule, Karl. Native Life in East Africa: The Results of an Ethnological Research Expedition. Translated by Alice Werner. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1909. (secondary); Dias, Jorge, and Margot Dias. Os Macondes de Moçambique. 4 vols. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Cultural / Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1964. (secondary)