The Elder Brother

In the Mambai origin narrative the heritage of the first ancestors is divided between an elder and a younger brother. The elder remains in Timor as guardian of the ritual trunk, the still, dark, autochthonous 'black' authority rooted at the source. Renouncing movement and outward power, he keeps the sacred house, the origin objects, and the obligations owed to Mother Earth, and from this immobility derives ritual precedence over all who came after. Mambai political thought makes the elder the hidden ground of legitimacy: the quiet lord of the land whose silent priority the visible powers must acknowledge. Sources give him by his relational title rather than a personal name.

Parentage

• paternal: Father Heaven
• maternal: Mother Earth

Domains

• ritual authority
• autochthony

Powers

• guard the ritual trunk at the source
• hold silent ritual precedence over later powers

Relations

• sibling: The Younger BrotherSenior of the two brothers of the origin myth; he stays while the younger departs.Traube, 'Mambai Rituals of Black and White' (1980), pp. 290-314 (the elder and younger brothers who divide the heritage) (primary)

Sources

• In the Mambai origin narrative the elder brother remains in Timor as guardian of the ritual 'trunk', the dark autochthonous 'black' authority whose immobility confers ritual precedence.: Elizabeth G. Traube, 'Mambai Rituals of Black and White,' in The Flow of Life (Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 290-314 (primary); Elizabeth G. Traube, Cosmology and Social Life (University of Chicago Press, 1986) (primary)