Nggwal is the paramount supernatural patron of the Ilahita Arapesh, the great Tambaran whom the men's secret society serves and to whom long yams, pigs and ritual labour are dedicated. The senior of Nggwal's two forms, Walipeine, presides over the highest initiatory grade and is bound to the ancestral dead and to the collective vitality of the village. Nggwal is a devouring patron: men labour, and in the end die, in his service, so that the abundance he grants is understood to be paid for with human life. His presence is manifest in the towering painted spirit-houses, in the paired flutes and slit-gongs whose sound is his voice, and in carved and painted images shown only to fully initiated men.