Jjumu Vuvu is the flood-surviving ancestor of the Nuosu and the pivot between the mythic and human ages of the Book of Origins. Named as the youngest son of the patriarch Qobu Jjumu, he alone heeds the warning of the coming deluge and seals himself in a wooden chest while his elder brothers, trusting vessels of iron and bronze, drown. As the waters rise he rescues floating creatures, among them a rat, a venomous snake, a bee and a frog, who in gratitude later help him win a celestial bride. Ascending to the sky, he weds Hnituo, the youngest daughter of the sky god Ngeti Gunzy, but the marriage is not freely granted: the bride-wealth and the couple's flight sour relations between the heavenly and the earthly houses, and their first children are born unable to speak until the secret of language is brought down from the sky. From this union descend the lines whose migrations and genealogies the rest of the epic recounts, making Jjumu Vuvu the common ancestor invoked in Nuosu clan reckonings.