Naqemati, the Creator

Naqemati is the supreme creator deity of the Paiwan, an Austronesian (Formosan) people of the southern Central Mountain Range of Taiwan. The name derives from the Paiwan root qemati, 'to create', so that Naqemati means 'the Maker'. In Paiwan land ethics articulated by the Paiwan scholar Masegeseg Z. Gadu, Naqemati is the true owner of the land and of all living things, while the ancestral spirits (tjasevalitan) serve as the land's guardians on the Creator's behalf. Modern and historically grounded surveys of Paiwan religion record that the people recognise at least eight gods, headed by a creator god or creator gods and including distinct deities of the mountains, rivers and seas, and the soil. Naqemati thus stands at the apex of a layered cosmos that also encompasses the hundred-pacer ancestor-snake, the nature gods, and the multitude of ancestral spirits and lesser numina (tsemas) addressed in ritual.

Domains

• creation
• sovereignty over land

Powers

• to create the world and its living things
• to hold ultimate ownership of the land

Epithets

• naqemati

Relations

• creator of: Vulung, the Hundred-Pacer Ancestor-Snake
• creator of: Sakina, God of the Mountains
• creator of: Volaluval, God of Rivers and the Sea
• creator of: Salamati, God of Soil and Crops

Sources

• Masegeseg Z. Gadu (Paiwan scholar, National Dong Hwa University College of Indigenous Studies), contribution on Paiwan land ethics, in Indigenous Spiritualities, Land Rights, and Climate Justice (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2025).
• 'Religious Beliefs in "Aboriginal Taiwan"', International Journal of Taiwan Studies 7, no. 1 (2024): 118ff., reporting that the Paiwan recognise at least eight gods headed by creator god(s) (citing Tung 1984: 13-15).