If the ancestors are satisfied, they provide rain that washes away the murals, and the cycle of life begins anew. It is fitting that murals are produced by women, who are symbolically linked to the house, which is a metaphor of the womb and of creation, and to the vegetal realm to which women are linked through their traditional roles as cultivators and foragers, and through several other vegetal symbols. The Basotho creation myth, for example, states that the nation emerged from a dark place deep in the earth through a bed of reeds; accordingly it was once customary upon the birth of child inside the earthen house, originally built in an igloo shape, and therefore womb-like, to place a reed in the doorway of the home until the child "crossed the reed" to emerge into the light of day (Van Wyk 1998: 103-107).