Naga' is the cosmic serpent on whose body the earth is thought to rest. When it stirs the ground trembles, and Senoi tradition explains earthquakes as its movement; its curving form is at times identified with the rainbow arching over the forest. The name is a loan, ultimately from Sanskrit by way of Malay, and the being it labels overlaps heavily with the underworld water-dragon: many Semai and Temiar treat the world-bearing snake and the flood-sending dragon of the underworld as one and the same power, while other accounts keep the earth-bearer and the flood-bringer apart. It belongs to the subterranean, watery pole of the cosmos that stands opposite the thunder of the sky.