Koipa Mangiang

Koipa Mangiang is the paramount spirit of the low ground in Maring cosmology, counterpart and complement to the red spirits of the high forest. Where the high ground is hot, dry, red, and hard, his domain is cold, wet, and given over to rot and to the fertile growth that rot makes possible. He is not a deceased ancestor but a primordial being of the earth below, bound up with decay, with the fluids and softness of the low country, and with the increase of taro and of pigs. The spirits of rot, the ordinary dead who did not fall in battle, belong to his region. Sources vary on the precise reach of his powers, but he is consistently rendered as governing the low, damp world and the cycle of decomposition and regeneration that turns death back into life.

Domains

• death and the dead
• decay and regeneration
• fertility and agriculture

Powers

• governs the low ground
• brings rot and decay
• quickens the fertility of gardens and pigs

Epithets

• Koipa Mangiang — Spirit of the Low GroundRappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary)

Relations

• rival: Rawa MugiComplementary cosmological opposites: the cold, wet, rotting low ground against the hot, dry, red high forest.Buchbinder, Georgeda & Rappaport, Roy A. (1976). 'Fertility and Death among the Maring.' In Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands, pp. 13-35. (primary)
• companion: Rawa TukumpThe ordinary dead of the low ground belong to his region.Rappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary)
• companion: MaiThe wild spirits of the low waters and forest fall within his domain.LiPuma, Edward (1988). The Gift of Kinship: Structure and Practice in Maring Social Organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (primary)

Sources

• Koipa Mangiang is the paramount, non-ancestral spirit of the low ground, associated with rot, coldness, wetness, and the fertility that decay makes possible, standing opposite the red spirits of the high forest.: Buchbinder, Georgeda & Rappaport, Roy A. (1976). 'Fertility and Death among the Maring.' In P. Brown & G. Buchbinder (eds.), Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands, pp. 13-35. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. (primary); Rappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary)