Hia, honoured by the title Hia Walangi Adu, is the founding ancestor (zatua) of the Ono Niha in the widely told origin narrative of the upper Gomo valley. According to oral tradition he descended to earth from the heavenly upper world of Lowalangi, settling at Sifalagö Gomo and founding the village of Orahili-Gomo; from him and the Gomo region the clans of Nias are said to have spread southward across the island. He is remembered as the pioneer of the adu — the carved ancestor-images — and is credited with completing the first adu zatua, an act commemorated in his name and regarded as the beginning of the indigenous ancestor cult (folohe adu) that stood at the heart of Nias religion. As a sky-descended culture-hero who founds society and cult, he bridges the divine order of Lowalangi and the human world of his Niasan descendants.