Creek World / Plaques / The Innermost Rotunda

CW·R·09

Tem

The Innermost, also called Woyengi

Tem, also called Woyengi, is the spirit everything in Creek World is made of. She lives at the centre of the country, and of this house. Her country begins at Temeama's shore.

She does not sleep. Tem, the Innermost, also called Woyengi, is the stock of Spirit itself: the ungrown spirit everything is made of. She lives past the Turning, deeper than spirits go before they fall back into the stock, in the most sacred place there is.

As Woyengi she is the mother who brings life at the beginning, and some people meet her. Only the elders have met the one called Tem.

The land itself is ungrown spirit. Some of the stock grew into someone: the lesser spirits, the presences, and at the largest scale the Lord of a land. Every village has its own Lord, hosted in its presence, and the Lords of different villages are kin.

The Spirit village exists to tend her. It has no presence and no land of its own, because what it keeps isn't one village's Lord but the stock all of them grew from.

Temeama, the first land you meet from the sea, marks her territory. Woyengi's country begins at Temeama's shore.

Quick facts

Also called
The Innermost, Woyengi
What she is
The stock of Spirit, past the Turning
Tended by
The Spirit village
Her threshold
Temeama's shore

See also

See this plaque in the museum →