Old Woman
Palauan · deity · mythic age · Recorded classification
Palauan ancestral mother of the four founding states; classed as deity. Native term Milad ('she who has given birth / the aged one'). Her rock-shelter at Ngeremlengui is held the most sacred origin site of Palau. Parmentier's ethnohistory documents the Milad cycle as the charter of Palauan polity.
Domains
- motherhood of states
Powers
- gives birth to the four founding states of Palau
Epithets
- Milad The woman who alone survived the flood and became mother of the four chiefly polities of PalauPalauan oral tradition (secondary)
Relations
- descendant of: Mother of the SeaAncestral mother of the four founding states standing in the descent of the sea-mother progenitrix Latmikaik, whose offspring became the gods/ancestral figures (parallel to Chuab's recorded descent).Parmentier, The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau (1987) (secondary)
Sources
- Milad, the surviving mother after the great flood, gave birth to the four cardinal founding states of Palau.: Krämer, A. (1917-1929). Palau. Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908-1910, II.B.3, Friederichsen, Hamburg (ethnography); Parmentier, R.J. (1987). The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau. University of Chicago Press (reference)