Gomawe is a great being of the northern and central Grande Terre, master of the land of the dead and dispenser of wealth and abundance. He dwells below, in the water and the earth, and the deceased pass into his keeping. His face is that of the large mourning mask, carved with a beaked nose and crowned with a mane of human hair, worn in the ceremonies of death and of the chieftaincy: the mask makes the hidden master of the dead momentarily present among the living. Because the mask travelled and was copied from valley to valley, the being behind it is known under related forms across the north, but Gomawe is the name most often attached to it in the country between Hienghène and Touho.