The wife of Totoima

The wife of Totoima is the mother of the twin heroes and the pivot of the myth's action. Married to the cannibal and forced to watch him eat each newborn, she conceals her twin sons and entrusts them to her own mother so that they survive to avenge their siblings. The tale turns on her concealment as much as on the brothers' later strength. The ethnographic record leaves her without a personal name.

Children

• The twin sons of Totoima

Domains

• concealment and protection

Powers

• hides her twin sons from the cannibal

Relations

• spouse: TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)
• child: The twin sons of TotoimaF. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)

Sources

• The unnamed wife of Totoima bears the children he devours and conceals the surviving twins, whom she gives to her mother to rear.: F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1930) (primary)