Manseren Nanggi
Biak Numfor · deity · Biak Numfor traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Manseren Nanggi, 'the Lord of the Sky,' is the high deity of traditional Biak-Numfor religion, associated with the heavens, the sun and the overarching order of the cosmos. Standing above the ancestral spirits honoured in korwar images and the nature-spirits of land and sea, Nanggi was the being to whom the term for lordship, manseren, most fully applied, and whose name Protestant translators later took over for the Christian God. Sources differ on how sharply the sky-lord was personified as against the sky itself.
Domains
- sky and heaven
- supreme lordship
Powers
- rules the sky and the heavens
Epithets
- Manseren Nanggi — Lord of the SkyKamma, F. C. (1972). Koreri: Messianic Movements in the Biak-Numfor Culture Area. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 3-14. (secondary)
Sources
- Manseren Nanggi, 'Lord of the Sky,' is the high deity of traditional Biak-Numfor religion, standing above ancestral spirits and nature-spirits; missionary translators later adopted the name for the Christian God.: Kamma, F. C. (1972). Koreri: Messianic Movements in the Biak-Numfor Culture Area. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 3-14. (secondary); Rutherford, D. (2003). Raiding the Land of the Foreigners. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ch. 3. (secondary)