Rumang

Rumang is the guardian of the road that the dead must travel to reach heaven in Yapese belief. After death the soul that would ascend is drawn by ritual incantation to a way-station, and from there it must offer stone money (rai) to Rumang and submit to his judgment before it is permitted to continue. Only those who satisfy him pass on into the clubhouse of the chief god Yanolop, who separates the good dead from the bad, such as those marked by disease. Rumang thus functions as a threshold judge and toll-keeper of the afterworld, a role that mirrors in the world of the dead the central place of stone money in Yapese life.

Domains

• threshold of the afterworld
• wealth and tribute

Powers

• to guard the road to the afterworld
• to weigh and judge the souls of the dead
• to demand a toll of stone money from the dead

Relations

• subordinate to: YanolopRumang keeps the toll-gate on the approach to the afterworld; the soul that passes him then enters the clubhouse of the chief god Yanolop, who makes the final separation of the worthy from the unworthy dead.Müller, Wilhelm. Yap. Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908–1910, II. Ethnographie, B. Mikronesien, Band 2. Hamburg: L. Friederichsen, 1917. (secondary)

Sources

• Rumang is the Yapese gate-keeper of the road to the afterworld who exacts a toll of stone money and judges the dead before they reach Yanolop's clubhouse.: Furness, William Henry, III. The Island of Stone Money: Uap of the Carolines. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1910. (secondary); Müller, Wilhelm. Yap. Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908–1910, II. Ethnographie, B. Mikronesien, Band 2. Hamburg: L. Friederichsen, 1917. (secondary); Lingenfelter, Sherwood G. Yap: Political Leadership and Culture Change in an Island Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1975. (secondary)