The Glow in the Stone

Toraja · deity · primordial / creation · deity

Arrang di Batu, 'the glow in the stone', is the consort of Puang Matua in the creation narrative preserved in the passomba tedong, the buffalo-consecration liturgy of the Sa'dan Toraja edited by H. van der Veen in his study of the merok feast. Puang Matua, seeking a wife, perceived a light shining out of a rock and found the woman revealed within it; one telling has her appear after he made the offering of a single bamboo tube of rice (piong sanglampa). In the Kesu' liturgy their marriage remained childless, and Puang Matua thereupon voyaged for gold and forged upon his twin bellows (sauan sibarrung) the eight proto-ancestors, among them Datu Laukku', ancestor of humankind; other Toraja accounts instead reckon the eight forged beings as twin offspring born to the couple.

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