Yam Culture-Hero
Trobriand · demigod · mythic · Recorded classification
Pre-eminent Massim/Trobriand culture-hero; entered as demigod per the brief. Recorded directly by Malinowski (1922; 1929; 1935). vitalStatus 'deceased' as he belongs to the mythic past and departed the islands. The 'virgin birth' (water from a stalactite) is a key motif Malinowski analysed in relation to Trobriand ignorance of physiological paternity.
Domains
- agriculture
- garden magic
Powers
- teaches people to grow yams and taro
- kills the cannibal ogre Dokonikan
Epithets
- Tudava The culture-hero who taught yam-gardening and slew the ogre DokonikanBronisław Malinowski, on the Trobriand Islanders (secondary)
Sources
- Tudava is the great culture-hero of the Trobriand Islands (Kiriwina), miraculously born to a mother impregnated by water dripping from a stalactite, who taught agriculture, canoe-building and fishing and slew the cannibal ogre Dokonikan with his mother's magic.: Malinowski, Bronisław. Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) (primary); Malinowski, Bronisław. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), on Tudava's virgin birth (primary)