The twin sons of Totoima

The twin sons of Totoima are the heroes of the myth: the children their mother rescues from the cannibal, reared in hiding by their grandmother until they are strong enough to avenge their eaten siblings and destroy their father. In the versions that bind the myth to horticulture and ritual, the brothers' victory is the origin of the taro-spirit that makes the gardens flourish and of the tree-spirits afterwards impersonated in male initiation. Sources do not preserve individual names for the twins, who are remembered as a pair; some tellings give a single surviving son rather than two.

Parentage

• parent: TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)
• parent: The wife of TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)

Domains

• vengeance
• taro fertility
• male initiation

Powers

• kills the cannibal Totoima
• gives rise to the taro-spirit and the initiatory tree-spirits

Relations

• parent: TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)
• parent: The wife of TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)
• enemy: TotoimaThey kill the father who ate their brothers and sisters.F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)

Sources

• The twin sons of Totoima are the culture-heroes of the myth, saved and hidden by their mother, who grow up to slay the cannibal father and whose deed is told as the origin of the taro-spirit and the initiatory tree-spirits.: F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary); Erik Schwimmer, Exchange in the Social Structure of the Orokaiva (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1973) (secondary)