Lature Danö, Lord of the Underworld

Lature Danö (also Latura Danö) is the lord of the lower world in the indigenous religion of Nias and the dark, chthonic counterpart of the sky-god Lowalangi. In Suzuki's analysis of Nias dualism he is the firstborn of the divine children and presides over the underworld — a dark realm, sometimes pictured as a cave or great pit — while Lowalangi rules the bright sky; the two embody the paired oppositions (upper/lower, light/dark, good/harmful) on which the cosmology turns, mediated by Silewe Nazarata. He is identified with the great serpent whose body underlies and shakes the earth and with the colour black, against the gold of the upper world. Sources differ on his gender valence: in the brother narratives he is masculine and the elder brother of Lowalangi, while in the structural dualism of upper/lower he occupies the dark, sometimes feminine-coded pole; both readings are recorded in the colonial-era and later ethnography.

Parentage

• Ina-da Samadulo Höse, the Primordial Ancestress

Domains

• underworld
• death and darkness
• serpent and earthquake

Powers

• to rule the dark underworld of the dead
• to embody the great serpent that bears and shakes the earth

Epithets

• Latura Danö Sangaria

Relations

• sibling: Lowalangi, Lord of the Upper World

Sources

• Peter Suzuki, The Religious System and Culture of Nias, Indonesia (The Hague: Excelsior, 1959)
• E.E.W.G. Schröder, Nias: Ethnographische, geographische en historische Aanteekeningen en Studiën (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1917)
• Jerome Feldman, Nias Tribal Treasures: Cosmic Reflections in Stone, Wood, and Gold (Delft: Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara, 1990)