Mythology

Utumu

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Spirit

The Myth

In Kiwai Papuan mythology, Utumu is the vengeful spirit of a man who was killed in battle and beheaded after death. Because of this violent end, his spirit did not rest and instead returned as a dangerous monster.

Utumu are capable of flight. When they move on the ground, their footprints resemble those of a human, but they are much shorter. These tracks are said to betray their presence to those who know how to recognize them.

At night, an utumu lures people by an eerie sight: the blood flowing from its severed neck glows like fire in the darkness. Drawn toward this shining light, victims are suddenly seized. The utumu attacks with powerful, monstrous claws, and sometimes with its fangs, despite being the spirit of a headless man.

After capturing a victim, the utumu devours the body but always leaves certain parts untouched. The head, bones, hands, and feet remain intact after the attack.

Because of this danger, people take special precautions before sleeping to prevent an utumu from carrying them away during the night. Even so, it is said that doors and walls offer little protection. An utumu can enter a hut through the smallest crack, just as spirits are able to pass wherever they wish.

Gallery

Sources

Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Utumu. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/Utumu/

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Oriogorukho

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: Oriogoruho
Category: Pig, Forest Dweller

The Myth

In the folklore of the Kiwai Papuans, Oriogorukho is described as an evil mythical creature that resembles a human in general form, but is clearly distinguished by several frightening features. Most striking are its enormous ears, which hang down to the ground. At night, the creature uses these ears to cover itself while it sleeps.

Although its body is broadly human-like, the Oriogorukho’s legs end in pig-like hooves. From its mouth protrude two pairs of sharp fangs, and instead of hair, bushes and creeping plants grow upon its head. Despite this monstrous appearance, the Oriogorukho possesses the ability to take on the shape of an ordinary human being. When it does so, it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to recognize it for what it truly is.

Oriogorukho are said to live in the forest, where they attack people. Their diet further sets them apart from humans. In addition to human flesh, they consume raw meat, fish, and unripe fruits. According to belief, a person who eats such improper food may themselves begin to transform into an Oriogorukho, with the first visible sign being the growth of the creature’s characteristic drooping ears.

In one tale, a man who has been shamed by his wife leaves his village and wanders into the forest. There he encounters an Oriogorukho and agrees to live together with it. Stories such as this suggest that although the Oriogorukho is regarded as a clearly negative and dangerous being, it is capable of treating people well if they themselves behave well toward it.

Gallery

Sources

Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Oriogorukho. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/Oriogorukho/

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Ororarora

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Forest Dweller

The Myth

Among the people of Kiwai Island, located in the Fly River delta of southeastern New Guinea, Ororarora is a name used to refer to mythical creatures. Rather than identifying a single being, the term functions as a general designation applied to such creatures within local belief.

The name appears in accounts of Kiwai mythology as a collective label, indicating the presence of beings understood to belong to the mythic or supernatural world.

Gallery

Sources

Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Ororarora. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/aromo-rubi/

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Dema

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Tradition / Region: Australian Mythology, Aborigine Mythology
Alternate Names: Dema, Demes
Category: Shapeshifter, Spirit

The Myth

In the age before the present world had settled into its familiar shape, the Dema walked the land. They were beings of mixed form, combining human features with those of animals and birds. Their bodies did not obey a single shape, and their nature was never fixed. To encounter a Dema was to face something both familiar and strange, human and non-human at once.

The Dema belonged to the time of first creations, when the world was still forming. This era is spoken of only vaguely as “long ago,” yet it does not feel distant. Stories of the Dema move freely between past and present, as if the boundary between then and now were thin. What happened in the age of the Dema can seem as near as yesterday.

The Dema were creators. They brought species, natural forces, and essential objects into existence. Often they did not merely create these things but were them. A Dema might be a man, a bird, a serpent, a tree, or all of these in turn. Transformation was natural to them, and stories tell of sudden and unexpected changes of form.

A Dema could appear as a youth and then slip back into an animal shape without warning. One might live as a serpent, be killed in that form, and yet continue to exist as a human, still bearing traces of the serpent, before eventually becoming a snake once more. Death did not always end a Dema’s story; it often marked another change.

Many Dema were the ancestors of clans and tribes. As totemic founders, they gave rise to the first people, animals, or plants of a lineage. Their mixed appearance reflected the bond between a clan and its totem. Through them, humans and animals were revealed to share a common origin.

Some Dema became the very species they had embodied. A Dema-dog, for example, transformed fully into a dog and produced many intelligent, speaking offspring. From these came the ordinary dogs of the world. In this way, myth explains how the extraordinary became ordinary, and how the living world took its present form.

Though powerful, the Dema were not always benevolent. They often quarreled with humans, bringing danger, rivalry, and conflict. Like heroes and monsters at once, they shaped the world through both creation and destruction.

The Dema are remembered not as distant gods, but as unstable, shifting beings whose actions still echo in the land, in animals, and in human descent. They embody the idea that the world is born from transformation, and that nothing was ever meant to remain fixed forever.

Gallery

Sources

Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Dema. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/dema/

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Aromo-rubi

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Spirit

The Myth

In the beliefs of the Kiwai Papuans, the sky is not empty. High above the earth live the Aromo-rubi, strange anthropomorphic beings with small bodies and great, powerful limbs. No other spirits dwell in the sky with them; the heights belong to the Aromo-rubi alone.

From their place above the world, they throw down long ropes. When they descend along these ropes and climb back up again, flashes of lightning tear across the sky. Their movement between sky and earth splits the darkness with sudden fire.

Thunder is made in another way. The Aromo-rubi roll massive tree trunks across the heavens. As the wood grinds and crashes through the sky, the sound echoes across the land as thunder, shaking forests and villages below.

Through these acts, the Aromo-rubi command the storm. Lightning and thunder are not signs of distant forces, but the visible and audible traces of their work in the sky.

Sources

Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Aromo-rubi. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/aromo-rubi/

Abaia

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Eel, Fish, Lake Dweller

The Myth

There is a deep lake in British New Guinea, rich with fish, and at its bottom dwells Abaia, a powerful and magical eel. Abaia is ancient and territorial, and like many great serpents and eels of Melanesian belief, it is bound to the forces of weather, storms, and floods. It does not tolerate disturbance.

One day, a man discovered Abaia’s lake and found that the fish within it were plentiful beyond measure. He caught many and returned to his village, telling the others of the endless bounty. Soon the people came together to the lake, casting their nets and hauling out fish in great numbers. In their greed, they took without restraint.

Among them, one woman caught Abaia himself in her net. The great eel struggled and escaped, slipping back into the depths of the lake.

That night, Abaia took revenge. Rain fell without pause. The lake swelled and overflowed its banks, and the floodwaters rose until the entire village was drowned. Men, women, and children were swept away by the storm.

Only one old woman survived. She had refused to eat the fish taken from the lake and climbed into a tree as the waters rose. When the flood receded, she alone remained, spared because she had not partaken in what belonged to Abaia.

Thus the people learned that the gifts of the water are not without guardians, and that greed awakens the wrath of those who dwell beneath the surface.

Sources

Dixon, R. B. (1916) The Mythology of All Races v. IX: Oceanic. Marshall Jones Company, Boston.

A Book of Creatures contributors. (n.d.). Abaia. In A Book of Creatures, from https://abookofcreatures.com/2019/01/04/abaia/

Coconut Ghost of Wutumara

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: Wutumara
Category: Ghost, Coconut, Plant

The Myth

Wutumara was a woman of great force and determination, a culture heroine whose life became entwined with the world of spirits. She was married to a man who also took a second wife—a ghost from the underworld. This ghost-wife often visited, and each time she came, she drew the husband away from the human world for long stretches of time. Wutumara grew resentful and jealous, angered that her rival’s presence disrupted her household and marriage.

Seeking to resolve this, Wutumara persuaded her husband to bring the ghost-wife permanently into the world of the living, believing that if they all lived together, harmony might be restored. Secretly, however, Wutumara intended to murder the ghost, unaware that spirits cannot be killed in the way humans can.

She attacked her rival and left her body in the jungle. But the ghost was not destroyed. Instead, she returned in vengeance, using powerful magic. She exchanged the genitals of Wutumara and her husband, a transformation meant to humiliate and confuse, and then killed Wutumara. After this, the ghost transformed herself into a pubic hair growing on the husband’s groin, hiding in plain sight.

Eventually, the husband tricked the ghost into revealing herself and managed to destroy her. Yet even this was not the end. Shortly afterward, the ghost reappeared once more, transformed into a coconut palm. To this day, it is said that the face of the angry ghost can still be seen in the coconut, watching from within its shell.

Thus the coconut palm became a lasting reminder of jealousy, rivalry, and the persistence of spirits beyond death—a living monument to Wutumara’s tragic conflict with the unseen world.

Gallery

Sources

Landtman, G. (1970). The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A nature-born instance of Rousseau’s ideal community.

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Hiwai-abere

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Dwarf, Shapeshifter

The Myth

Hiwai-abere are wicked female beings who resemble women but are marked by grotesque and unsettling features. They are described as very fat, with large heads, swollen bellies, and unusually short legs. Their fingernails are long and sharp like spears, and with these they are able to hunt and kill wild pigs. Wherever they go, they constantly break wind, an action that is both comic and disturbing, and yet they possess extraordinarily sharp hearing, able to detect even a whisper from far away.

Despite their monstrous nature, hiwai-abere are masters of deception. They can disguise themselves perfectly, even taking on the appearance and features of specific human women. Through this ability, they approach men they desire and insert themselves into human society unnoticed. In many folk tales, a hiwai-abere replaces a bride at a wedding or abducts the rightful wife and takes her place in the household.

At first, the husband notices only that something is wrong. His wife seems changed in strange and troubling ways. The hiwai-abere cannot properly perform ordinary women’s work and instead demands to be served. She becomes possessive and jealous, preventing her husband from speaking to or approaching other women. The household falls into disorder, and the husband grows increasingly distressed by the inexplicable transformation of his wife.

Eventually, the deception is uncovered. The hiwai-abere is exposed for what she truly is, often through her inability to maintain human behavior or through the intervention of others. Once revealed, she is driven away, and the rightful wife is restored. The tales always end with the reuniting of the legitimate couple and the removal of the dangerous impostor.

Through these stories, the hiwai-abere stand as symbols of deception, disruption, and the fear of identity being stolen. They embody the danger of false appearances and the belief that what looks human may not always belong to the human world.

Gallery

Sources

Landtman, G. (1970). The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A nature-born instance of Rousseau’s ideal community.

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Begeredubu

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Spirit

The Myth

Begeredubu is the mythical being of Waboda, a figure who is both man and spirit. He first appears in stories set in another place, but during a great flood he was carried away by a powerful torrent and brought to Waboda, where he remained.

At first, Begeredubu lived inside a large tree called gagoro. The tree was closely bound to his existence, and in time Begeredubu himself came to be identified with it. When the gagoro tree eventually fell, he built a house for himself and continued to dwell there, maintaining his presence in the area.

Begeredubu is remembered as a powerful and unusual being, marked by physical traits that set him apart from ordinary men. Through his arrival by flood, his dwelling in the gagoro tree, and his continued presence after its fall, he became firmly rooted in the land and memory of Waboda, existing at the boundary between the human world and the realm of spirits.

Sources

Landtman, G. (1970). The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A nature-born instance of Rousseau’s ideal community.

Erumia

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Tradition / Region: Papua New Guinea Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Sea Dweller, Jellyfish

The Myth

On a reef near the village of Mawata lives Erumia, an enormous jellyfish feared and respected by the people. All ordinary jellyfish are said to be her children, spreading through the sea as extensions of her presence. Many men claim to have seen her with their own eyes.

Erumia is deadly. Her sting can kill a person, and when swimmers see long, slimy strings drifting toward them in the water, they know these are her trailing tendrils. At such a sight, there is no thought of bravery—only flight. To remain is to risk death.

Yet Erumia is not merely a threat. She is the patron of all fish and holds power over the sea’s abundance. To certain men she appears in dreams, granting them “lucky things” for fishing—signs, charms, or knowledge that ensure a successful catch. Through these gifts, she sustains life even as she threatens it.

The Mawata people themselves are closely linked with Erumia. Neighboring groups regard her as their ororodrora, a powerful mysterious being bound to their identity. When Mawata visitors arrive elsewhere, they may be greeted with the words, “The Erumia people have come,” acknowledging this spiritual association.

Erumia’s presence is also remembered in song. In a serial chant describing a journey eastward from Adiri, her domain is marked by the hanging jellyfish strings near the mouth of the Bina River—a sign that one has entered her waters.

Thus Erumia remains both guardian and danger: mother of jellyfish, ruler of fish, giver of fortune, and bringer of death, dwelling silently on her reef while her influence drifts far beyond it.

Gallery

Sources

Landtman, G. (1970). The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A nature-born instance of Rousseau’s ideal community.

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