Ridge Wife

Ridge Wife is an Eiji story. It tells how Pizeezom, the Creator who rules over all, got his wife Yádungkas and how the Eiji people became the Creator's blessed servants. The myth is key in describing how Eiji women, especially wives, are expected to behave.

Summary

Piziizom needed a wife, so he decided to form one from the land below. He searched the earth for a suitable match. His wife would need to be obedient, sturdy, fertile, and loving. The desert was sturdy but lifeless and isolated. A wife like the desert would not be a good mother. The ocean was full of life, but it was too excitable, changeable, and independent. A wife like the ocean would never obey. The ridge was sturdy and flowed with streams. Plants grew around the base of the ridge, along its streams, and in its crevices. What really stood out about her, though, was the way she sought Piziizom, stretching up toward the sky where the He lived. Piziizom reached down, took up some rock and some grass from the ridge, and formed a wife out of it. He named her Yádungkas, meaning "earth wife," and clothed her in fabrics of green, brown, and gray. He promised to love and protect her. Yádungkas smiled at the Creator. She smiled at the earth below. She smiled especially at the ridge from where she came.
"Someday," the Creator said to his wife, "when humans populate the ridge, they shall be blessed. They will serve me as you do. They will have my favor."
"They will have my favor, too," said the Creator's wife.

Historical Basis

This story likely has its roots in an older story in very early Eiji culture, for which Piziizom was a sky god and Yádungkas was an earth goddess.

Spread

Ridge Wife is a key myth in Eiji culture. Many theologians and other scholars say that Yádungkas symbolizes the Eiji people.

Variations & Mutation

Different versions of the myth list different places that Piziizom considered when looking for inspiration. Some list the forest (which, with its shadows, would result in a secretive wife who would keep secrets from her husband) and the mountain (barren, stretches too high and thus would be too ambitious). Some list the river instead of the ocean.

Cultural Reception

The Eiji point to the Ridge Wife story for several different lessons: why serving the Eiji Empire is important, why the Eiji Empire is strong and thriving, how wives should behave, and why women, in particular, must serve and obey authority figures.
Other cultures [which ones?] have remarked on the harshly delineated gender roles that this myth promotes.

Related Ethnicities