Ameta
Ameta, 'the dark one,' is the human protagonist of the Hainuwele myth and the mediator between the mundane and dema orders. Hunting with his dog, he found the first coconut lodged on the tusk of a boar that had drowned in a pond; instructed in a dream, he planted it wrapped in a serpent-figured cloth, and it grew in days to a flowering palm. Climbing to cut its blossoms for palm wine he gashed his finger, and where his blood fell a girl-child, Hainuwele, formed on the flower. He reared her, profited by the treasures she produced, and when the nine families murdered her at the Maro dance he found her by the coconut-leaf oracle, unearthed and cut up the body, and planted the pieces to bring forth the staple tubers, carrying her arms to Satene. Though a mortal man, he is the agent through whom the dema gifts of coconut and tuber enter the world.
Children
Domains
- hunting
- cultivation and origins
Powers
- raise and quicken the first coconut palm
- divine hidden things by the coconut-leaf oracle
- dismember and sow the maiden's body
Epithets
- Ameta — the Dark OneA. E. Jensen, Myth and Cult among Primitive Peoples, trans. M. T. Choldin and W. Weissleder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 88-171. (secondary)
Relations
- parent: HainuweleSole progenitor of Hainuwele, whom he raised from the coconut blossom and his blood, and whose body he later sowed to make the crops.A. E. Jensen and H. Niggemeyer, Hainuwele: Volkserzaehlungen von der Molukken-Insel Ceram (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1939). (primary)
Sources
- Ameta, a hunter of the primeval Patasiwa, obtained the first coconut from a boar drowned by his dog, planted it at a dream's bidding, brought forth Hainuwele from its blossom with his blood, and after her murder divined, disinterred, dismembered and sowed her body to originate the tuber crops.: A. E. Jensen and H. Niggemeyer, Hainuwele: Volkserzaehlungen von der Molukken-Insel Ceram (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1939). (primary); A. E. Jensen, Myth and Cult among Primitive Peoples, trans. M. T. Choldin and W. Weissleder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 88-171. (secondary)