Tchinal
Manus (Titan) · numen · Manus (Titan) traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The tchinal is a man-eating ogre of the bush and mangrove, a stock figure of Manus narrative and of the fears instilled in children. For the sea-dwelling Manus, whose houses stood on piles over the lagoon, the forested interior was the domain of danger, and the tchinal personifies that danger as a devouring monster. Sources treat it less as an object of cult than as a being of folktale and admonition, distinct from the ancestral ghosts who governed everyday religious life.
Domains
- wilderness and forest
- danger and predation
Powers
- seizes and devours those who stray into the bush
Sources
- Manus tale and children's lore feature the tchinal, a cannibal ogre of the forest that devours those who wander from the safety of the village and lagoon.: Margaret Mead, Growing Up in New Guinea (1930) (secondary); R. F. Fortune, Manus Religion (1935) (secondary)