Sfedat

Sfedat is a son of Kadaw La Sambad and Bulon La Mogoaw and a central figure of the T'boli creation cycle. He marries his sister Bong Libun, but the union is barren, and in his despondency he asks her to kill him. When she does, his corpse becomes the first land, out of which spring all manner of plants and trees. His brother D'wata afterward obtains this land from Bong Libun, spreads it out, and plants it to form the inhabited earth. Sfedat thus embodies the mythic theme by which death and fertility are joined: the slain divine body becomes the very ground of the world.

Parentage

• parent: Kadaw La Sambad
• parent: Bulon La Mogoaw

Domains

• earth and land
• vegetation and fertility

Powers

• to become, in death, the earth from which all plants and trees grow

Epithets

• SfedatCasinto, Caesar Dealwis (2022). 'Looking From a Window: A Critical Analysis of the T'boli's Worldview Through their Oral Traditions.' International Journal of Language and Literary Studies 4(1): 282-303. (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: CumuculSfedat and Cumucul are brothers among the divine children of the seventh heaven.Casal, Gabriel S. (1978). T'boli Art in its Socio-Cultural Context. Makati: Filipinas Foundation. (secondary)
• sibling: D'wataSfedat and D'wata are brothers; it is the land formed from Sfedat's body that D'wata asks Bong Libun to grant him and then shapes into the earth.Casal, Gabriel S. (1978). T'boli Art in its Socio-Cultural Context. Makati: Filipinas Foundation. (secondary)

Sources

• Sfedat is a son of the T'boli supreme couple whose self-requested death turns his corpse into the primordial land that brings forth all plants and trees, the raw earth later shaped by D'wata.: Casal, Gabriel S. (1978). T'boli Art in its Socio-Cultural Context. Makati: Filipinas Foundation. (secondary); Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life: 'T'boli' (Encyclopedia.com). (secondary)