The mama are the shadow-doubles that Kaluli cosmology assigns to every living person, a class of unseen being rather than a single individual. A person's mama wanders the forested slopes of Mount Bosavi, taking the form of a wild pig if the person is a man and a cassowary if a woman, and the two are so bound that harm to the double sickens or kills its human counterpart. The doubles of the dead, called ane mama or 'gone reflections', appear as forest birds, and it is through them that the deceased are said to speak. The mama world mirrors the visible one and obeys the same laws, forming the reflective ground on which mediums, hunters, and the bereaved understand illness, game, and grief.