Yaboaine

Yaboaine is the war god of the Dobu-speaking peoples of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, most fully documented for Normanby Island (Duau). He presides over warfare, headhunting and the feasting upon slain enemies, and is closely bound to the underworld and to the disposition of the dead. Róheim's monograph treats him as the deity who receives the spirits of warriors and to whom the flying witches (werebana) are drawn when they gather to devour the slain; sources also connect him with the northern land of the dead and with the sun. Together with Fortune's Dobu ethnography, this material establishes him as the foremost named deity of the tradition.

Domains

• war
• death

Powers

• presides over warfare and the slaughter of enemies
• receives the spirits of the slain and the dead

Epithets

• War God of Normanby Island — war deity of the Duau (Normanby) Dobu-speakersGéza Róheim, 'Yaboaine, a War God of Normanby Island,' Oceania 16 (1946): 210-233. (primary)

Sources

• Yaboaine is the principal war deity of the Dobu-speaking peoples, bound to warfare, cannibal feasting and the disposition of the dead.: Géza Róheim, 'Yaboaine, a War God of Normanby Island,' Oceania 16, no. 3-4 (1946): 210-233, 319-336. (primary); Reo F. Fortune, Sorcerers of Dobu (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1932). (primary)