Masalai are localized nature-spirits attached to specific features of the Manus landscape and seascape, above all to particular reefs, passages, pools and rocks. Unlike Sir Ghost and the wandering ghosts, they were never human; they belong to the place itself and defend it, striking those who violate its taboos and appearing in the form of a snake, shark or crocodile. Sources place them at the margin of Manus religious concern, which centred overwhelmingly on the ancestral ghosts, but they were a genuine and feared part of the spirit world of the Admiralties.