Nokwi, also nogwi or noukwi, is the great female spirit of the third and most sacred ceremony of the Kwoma yam cycle, a rite confined to the most senior men, those who were both proven homicides and the fathers of many children. Her image is carved from the hardest local hardwood as a stylised but readily recognisable mature woman, roughly a metre to a metre and a half tall, and stands as the tradition's principal embodiment of womanhood and clan fertility. In the ceremony the nokwi spirit is made present in a pair of near life-size female figures bearing the names Hameiyau and Sanggriayau.