The Bamboo-born Ancestor

One of the two primordial ancestors of the Tao, born when the sky god cast a length of bamboo onto the mountain and a man came forth as the cane split open. As with the stone-born ancestor, his knees swelled and produced children, and the union of the two knee-born lineages founded humankind while marriage within a single line yielded deformed offspring. Sources treat the stone-born and bamboo-born ancestors as paired co-founders; the bamboo-born ancestor's personal name is likewise not preserved.

Children

• The Knee-born Foremother

Domains

• ancestry and origins

Powers

• come forth from the split bamboo
• bring forth children from the swollen knee

Relations

• companion: The Stone-born Ancestor
• parent: The Knee-born Foremother

Sources

• Del Re, Arundel (1951), Creation Myths of the Formosan Natives, Tokyo: Hokuseido Press.
• Kano & Segawa (1956), An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines, Vol. I: The Yami.