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.