In the Makonde origin narrative a solitary manlike being, wandering the wilderness, carves a figure of wood and sets it against a tree; as the sun rises the figure becomes a living woman and the being himself becomes a man. The couple wash for the first time in the Ruvuma (Rovuma) river, marking their full humanity. She bears a first child by the river, which dies; moved to higher ground a second child also dies; only when they reach the plateau do their children survive, and so the Makonde are established there. As the founding mother of a matrilineal people, the carved Woman occupies the central place that female ancestor-figures hold in Makonde wood-sculpture, where the family tree is conventionally headed by a woman.