# Teshumai Tewindrow — Just So Stories character guide

> Teshumai Tewindrow in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Teshumai

**First appearance:** 0007-how-the-first-letter-was-written

## Snapshot

Taffy's fierce Neolithic mother, who reads a picture-letter as a murder confession and rallies the tribe against an innocent Stranger-man.

## Who they are

She is the mistress of the Neolithic Cave, a woman of swift judgment and quicker temper, who mistakes Taffy's drawn message for evidence that Tegumai has been speared. Her certainty is comic and terrifying: she screams, summons the Neolithic ladies, and has the bewildered Stranger-man sat upon, muddied, and nearly beheaded before the truth arrives. Her misreading of the new art of writing makes her the story's engine of farce and shows how easily a fresh invention can be misunderstood.

## In the story

### [How the First Letter Was Written](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/chapters/how-the-first-letter-was-written)

Teshumai misinterprets the picture letter as an attack on her husband and rallies the tribe.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/characters/teshumai_tewindrow
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/characters