Nia is the demon of madness in Guna therapeutic mythology, a malevolent being of the underworld layers who seizes the vital soul of the sick and drives them into insanity, delirium and fever. He is the adversary confronted in the great curing chant Nia-Ikala, 'the Way of the Demon,' recorded and published by Holmer and Wassen, in which the shaman journeys through the demon's dwelling and its dangers to recover the patient's soul and restore sanity. The chant is the mirror-image, in the realm of mental affliction, of the Muu-Igala for obstructed birth. Sources differ on whether nia designates the single arch-demon of the chant or a whole class of disease-causing demons, of which this is the paradigmatic member.