The Single Rib

Toraja · deity · primordial / creation · deity

Usuk Sangbamban, 'the single rib', is a god of the second divine generation in the cosmogony chanted in the passomba tedong of the Kesu' Toraja. He sprang from a rib that separated itself from the side of the sky god Gaun Tikembong, took the goddess Simbolong Manik, 'the beaded chignon', to wife, and from their union was born Puang Matua, the Old Lord who later forged the ancestors of humankind and of the useful things of the world upon his twin bellows. Usuk Sangbamban thus stands in the liturgical genealogies as the father of the supreme god, the link between the first divine triad and the creator generation.

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