The Stone-born Ancestor

One of the two primordial ancestors of the Tao, born when the sky god cast a stone onto the peak of the island's central mountain and a man emerged from it. In the widely recorded version his knees later swelled and split, and from them issued children who, together with the offspring of the bamboo-born ancestor, became the progenitors of humankind. The narrative explains the origin of the marriage rule: children sprung from a single ancestor's knees who married one another produced blind or malformed offspring, whereas unions across the two ancestral lines produced whole and healthy descendants. The stone-born ancestor's personal name is not preserved in the texts, which identify him by his miraculous origin.

Children

• The Knee-born Forefather

Domains

• ancestry and origins

Powers

• come forth from the stone
• bring forth children from the swollen knee

Relations

• companion: The Bamboo-born AncestorThe two primordial ancestors created in the same act; their descendants intermarry to produce humankind.Del Re, Arundel (1951), Creation Myths of the Formosan Natives, Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. (primary)
• parent: The Knee-born ForefatherFather, from his knee, of the knee-born son.Kano & Segawa (1956), An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines, Vol. I: The Yami. (secondary)

Sources

• The first of the two Tao primordial ancestors was born when the sky god cast a stone onto the mountain, and from his swollen knees came the children of the human line.: Del Re, Arundel (1951), Creation Myths of the Formosan Natives, Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. (primary); Kano & Segawa (1956), An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines, Vol. I: The Yami. (secondary)
• His personal name is not preserved; he is identified by his stone origin.: Benedek, Dezso (1991), The Songs of the Ancestors, Taipei: SMC Publishing. (secondary)