Hainuwele

Wemale and Alune · deity · Wemale and Alune traditional religion; continuing · deity

Hainuwele is the murdered maiden of the central Wemale myth of West Seram, the paradigm of what A. E. Jensen named the 'dema-deity.' She grew from a blossom of the miraculous coconut palm that Ameta had raised from the first coconut, quickened when a drop of his blood fell upon the flower. Within days she matured into a marriageable girl who voided precious things from her body. At the great nine-night Maro festival on the Tamene Siwa dance ground, she stood in the coils of the spiral dance distributing ever richer gifts, until the envious nine families dug a pit and, in the winding of the dance, trampled her down into it and buried her alive. Ameta found her body by the coconut-leaf oracle, disinterred and dismembered it, and planted the pieces about the ground, whence sprang the yams and tubers that are the staple food; her severed arms he carried to Satene. Her death thus grounds both the cultivated crops and, through Satene's response, the mortal condition of humankind. Sources differ on the precise gloss of her name, but the coconut element is secure.

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