First Man

Marshallese first man / progenitor; classed as deity (primordial being). Native term Wūllep (variants Wulleb, Wüllep). Gloss 'First Man'. parentIds links to Lowa, from whose leg he and the first woman (Limdunanji) emerged; the trickster Letao is born from him.

Parentage

• parent: Creator

Children

• Fire Trickster

Domains

• first ancestry

Powers

• raises the shell-half into sky and earth

Epithets

• Wūllep latin · Wulleb · oralA primal being of the first creation; father of the trickster LetaoMarshallese oral tradition (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: First WomanReciprocal of marshallese_lejman.sibling — First Woman and First Man, the pair of beings who emerged from the leg of the creator Lowa in the Marshallese cosmogony.A. Erdland, Die Marshall-Insulaner (1914) (secondary)

Sources

• Wulleb (Wüllep) is the first man, issuing from Lowa's leg with the first woman, and father of the trickster Letao; in a variant he and Lejman raise the shell to form sky and earth.: Erdland, A. (1914). Die Marshall-Insulaner: Leben und Sitte, Sinn und Religion eines Südsee-Volkes. Anthropos-Bibliothek, Aschendorff, Münster (ethnography); Tobin, J.A. (2002). Stories from the Marshall Islands: Bwebwenato Jān Aelōñ Kein. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu (reference)