Malahas, the Woman of the Woods, is a cannibal ogress of Nuu-chah-nulth tradition who steals children from the villages and carries them off into the forest to her lair. She is the antagonist of the Andaokut narrative, in which the giant hero born of a mother's grief pursues her, kills her, and frees her captives. As a devouring forest-woman she belongs to the Northwest Coast family of wild cannibal ogresses whose stories warned children away from the dangers of the woods and gave narrative shape to the boundary between the safe village and the perilous wilderness.