Horoo (Horo) is the first human being and apical ancestor of the Oromo in the origin traditions of Waaqeffanna. In the myth as recorded from Oromo elders, creation began with water — Walaabuu — out of which Waaqa called all creatures, Horoo first among them; in a widespread telling the primordial ancestor was at first neither male nor female and was divided into the two sexes by the glance of Waaqa. The scholar Gemetchu Megerssa records that the first Oromo man and woman were called Horo and Hortu, while other strands of tradition name Tabo as the first person and Horo as the second, or hold the firstborn to be unknown. Horoo's birthplace is identified with Madda Walaabuu in the Bale lowlands, the sacred springs from which, as the tradition has it, all creation came forth and which long remained the ritual heartland and pilgrimage centre of the Oromo. Through Horoo the whole nation understands itself as a single family of common descent under Waaqa.