Lowalangi, Lord of the Upper World

Nias · deity · Nias traditional religion; continuing · deity

Lowalangi (also Lowalani) is the supreme deity of the indigenous religion of the Ono Niha of Nias, off western Sumatra. In the dualistic and partly monistic system analysed by Peter Suzuki, the godhead presents three aspects: Lowalangi in the upper world as the source of good and light, his counterpart Lature Danö in the underworld, and the mediating goddess Silewe Nazarata who belongs to both. Lowalangi rules the sky, is masculine, and is associated with gold and the colour of brightness; he is the creator and the giver of the life-breath (noso) that animates human beings and returns to him at death. In the southern Nias origin narrative he is identified with Luo Mewöna, the youngest of King Sirao's sons, who alone succeeds in the spear contest and so inherits the heavenly throne while his brothers are cast down to become the ancestors of the Niasans. So central was his name that nineteenth-century German missionaries adopted Lowalangi to translate the Christian God, the subject of Zaluchu's study.

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