Ancestress-Creatress

Ancestress-creatress / culture-heroine tier (rendered deity). The Min peoples are collectively the 'children of Afek'; cognate names occur across the group (Telefol Afek/Afékan, Faiwol Karigan, Mian Paatakanib/Fitipkanib). The transliterations field carries those tradition-variant names. English-leading name 'Ancestress-Creatress'; vernacular Afek in term.

Domains

• ancestral origins
• agriculture
• male cult and initiation

Powers

• FOUND the Telefolip cult-house and the taro gardens
• SHAPE the landscape of the Min country

Epithets

• Afek latin · Afek · oralThe great ancestress-creator who founded the cult-houses and the sacred knowledge of the Mountain OkFredrik Barth, Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman; Telefol tradition (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: Brother of the AncestressUmoim is the ancestress's brother (in variants brother-husband) in the Telefol cycle; his death founds the underworld and the cult of the dead.B. Craig & D. Hyndman (eds.), Children of Afek: Tradition and Change among the Mountain-Ok of Central New Guinea (1990) (secondary)

Sources

• Afek (Afékan) is the primal ancestress-creatress of the Mountain Ok / Min peoples; she founded Telefol culture, the men's cult and the central cult-house at Telefolip (which governs taro fertility), travelled through the region creating its landscape and cult centres, and is the ancestress from whom the Min reckon descent (Faiwol Karigan, Mian Paatakanib).: Barth, F. (1987). Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea. Cambridge University Press. (ethnography); Jorgensen, D. (1981). Taro and Arrows: Order, Entropy and Religion among the Telefolmin. PhD thesis, University of British Columbia. (ethnography); Craig, B. & Hyndman, D. (eds.) (1990). Children of Afek: Tradition and Change among the Mountain-Ok of Central New Guinea. Oceania Monograph 40, University of Sydney. (ethnography)