Masalai
Encyclopedia
Masalai are a type of spirit in Papua New Guinea
. Margaret Mead
defined them as: "supernatural beings that inhabit
specific places, usually distinguished by some special natural feature (a water hole, waterfall, bend in a river, cliff, marsh, etc.), and that exercise limited jurisdiction over their own area; they may manifest themselves as snakes, crocodiles and other creatures, often with bizarre features, such as strange coloring, two heads, etc. Masalai may be associated with descent lines, moieties, hamlets, villages." Masalai may employ trickery to seduce people, causing genital bleeding and death. White people were sometimes mistaken for masalai because their clothes resembled snake skin being shed. There are numerous folk tales about the masalai.
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
. Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
defined them as: "supernatural beings that inhabit
specific places, usually distinguished by some special natural feature (a water hole, waterfall, bend in a river, cliff, marsh, etc.), and that exercise limited jurisdiction over their own area; they may manifest themselves as snakes, crocodiles and other creatures, often with bizarre features, such as strange coloring, two heads, etc. Masalai may be associated with descent lines, moieties, hamlets, villages." Masalai may employ trickery to seduce people, causing genital bleeding and death. White people were sometimes mistaken for masalai because their clothes resembled snake skin being shed. There are numerous folk tales about the masalai.