The Watani-kame ceremony

Watani-kame can be seen as the ceremony introducing the Emakame feast. The literal translation of Emakame is 'bone house', and the feast, with its link to the bone house, may be regarded as a counterpart to the Kaware feast, although the Kaware and Emakame feasts are not both celebrated in the same places.
The chief characters in the Emakame myth are Mirokoata and Mirokoatajao. Mirokoata, the mother, is a snake woman (miroko being the name for a land snake) whose village is attacked by a monster, half giant 'monitor' lizard and half crocodile, which eats up all the people and their dugout canoes. Mirokoata is the only survivor, and gives birth to her son Mirokoatajao, who rapidly reaches manhood, and goes hunting. He returns with a dove, a jungle fowl, and a lizard. However, it is forbidden to kill lizards. From the start of his hunting, Mirokoatajao experiences growing curiosity about the coast, but since the monster is still resting there after the murders it has committed, the coast is forbidden territory. Nevertheless, Mirokoatajao goes there, and is impressed by the great number of fish he sees there. He therefore convinces his mother to go and live on the coast with him. There, he builds three ceremonial houses, placing a number of spears in each of them, as protection against possible attacks by the monster. Attracted by Mirokoatajao's singing in one of the houses, the monster flings itself at the building. Pierced by the spears, the lizard/crocodile is so badly wounded that its further attacks kill it. Mirokoatajao and his mother cut the beast into many pieces, and throw these is different directions, thus creating the first humans (Kooijman 1984: 35-30)

<< Back