masalai

{{Short description|Supernatural spirits in Papua New Guinea}}

Masalai are a type of supernatural spirit in Papua New Guinea.

Margaret Mead defined them as: "supernatural beings that inhabit

specific places, usually distinguished by some special natural feature (a water hole, waterfall, bend in a river, cliff, marsh, etc.), and that exercise limited jurisdiction over their own area; they may manifest themselves as snakes, crocodiles and other creatures, often with bizarre features, such as strange coloring, two heads, etc. Masalai may be associated with descent lines, moieties, hamlets, villages."{{cite journal | title = The Sepik as a Culture Area: Comment | journal = Anthropological Quarterly | year = 1978 | first = Margaret | last = Mead | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 69–75| jstor = 3317126 | doi=10.2307/3317126}}

According to legend, Masalai may employ trickery to seduce people, causing genital bleeding and death. White people were sometimes mistaken for masalai because their clothes resembled snake skin being shed.{{cite journal | title = Sexuality and Cargo Cults: The Politics of Gender and Procreation in West New Britain | journal = Cultural Anthropology | year = 1991 | first = Andrew | last = Lattas | volume = 6 | issue = 2 | pages = 230–256| jstor = 656416| doi=10.1525/can.1991.6.2.02a00070}} There are numerous folk tales about the masalai.{{cite book | last1 = Slone | first1 = Thomas H. | title = One thousand one Papua New Guinean nights: folktales from Wantok newspaper, Volume 1 | publisher = Masalai Press | year = 2001 | location = Oakland, Calif. | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fnU8bVdiGtEC&dq=masalai&pg=PA253 | access-date = 2011-10-06 | isbn = 978-0-9714127-0-5}}