Falanga is the tambaran of the first grade of the Ilahita initiation cycle, the spirit into whose keeping the youngest boys are given. It stands at the threshold of the men's religion, the mildest of its terrors, and opens the long graded ascent that in later life leads through Lefin and Maolimu to the high cult of Nggwal. Falanga is one of the indigenous Arapesh tambaran whose imagery concerns the beginnings of masculine growth.