Dirava

Dirava is the Motu term for a supreme or creator spirit. In the traditional religion the word denoted a powerful supernatural being of sky and sea, standing apart from the spirits of the dead and from the localized clan and reef spirits with which everyday religious life was chiefly concerned. When the London Missionary Society translated scripture into Motu in the later nineteenth century, W.G. Lawes adopted Dirava as the name of the Christian God, and it is in this sense that the word is now most widely used. Scholars accordingly differ on how far the pre-Christian Dirava was conceived as a single high god as against a class of spirit-beings, a distinction the early sources do not resolve.

Domains

• supreme spirit
• sky and sea

Powers

• presided over sky and sea

Epithets

• Dirava — God; the high spiritLawes, W.G. (1885). Grammar and Vocabulary of Language Spoken by Motu Tribe. Sydney: Government Printer. (primary)

Sources

• Dirava is the Motu term for a supreme spirit and was adopted by the London Missionary Society as the Motu name of the Christian God.: Lawes, W.G. (1885). Grammar and Vocabulary of Language Spoken by Motu Tribe, New Guinea. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer. (primary); Oram, N.D. (1976). Colonial Town to Melanesian City. Canberra: Australian National University Press. (secondary)
• Scholars differ on the pre-Christian conception of Dirava, whether a single high god or a class of spirit-being.: Goddard, M. (2005). The Unseen City: Anthropological Perspectives on Port Moresby. Canberra: Pandanus Books. (secondary)