Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

What my fathers taught me: a tribute

BY EMMA WAKPI

AT A TIME WHEN THE FOCUS of the world is upon Papua New Guinea and its attitude toward women, I have been reflecting upon the male influences in my life.

I know there are good men in PNG and we need their support and encouragement in order to create a safer more equitable society for both sexes. I want to introduce to you three such men who have impacted my life - my grandfather, uncle and father.

These men influenced me in unique ways and the lessons learned were not from longwinded lectures (although they were prone to those too) but rather from observing how they lived their lives.

What my grandfather taught me

Every individual is unique and must be accorded dignity.

My grandfather had a soft spot for the scorned and oft ignored of our clan and would strive to let them know they mattered. He had a way about him which made it seem that you were the favoured one, that you were special.

Most times upon his return from a feast, often the best meat cuts were quietly slipped to the widows, divorcees or the least favored wife of a clansman.  He would cut smaller portions, wrap them in banana leaves and hide them in various locations then give their children riddles to find them – a treasure hunt of his creation.

This was something he did regularly with his grandchildren and we thought we were the only ones with whom he played this game. At his funeral however I was overwhelmed by the amount of people (most I did not know well) who told of his generosity and recalled his treasure hunts.

He also made it a habit to every so often, visit the homes of the aforementioned women. He would ask them how they were and if there was something that needed doing. If they required assistance, appointments were made and at the set time he and his family would team up and help; fencing gardens, making new gardens, harvesting kunai to thatch roofs.

To us children he made such outings an event and would teach various chants and games turning work to play. Firewood distribution was another duty he took upon himself and would ensure that not only his own household was provided for but that of those who did not have a man to look after them. He never made any help seem like charity for he would call on those assisted to reciprocate by helping him in his garden etc.

Words cannot describe the bond I had with him and even though he has left us, his memory and the continuing of this legacy gives life a feeling of completeness.

Australia riding a wave of Pacific culture

BY SAM BOLITHO
ISLANDS BUSINESS

BANANA TREES IN THE GARDEN, leafy greens for lunch, the childhood of Lisa Hilli [pictured] was like many others in the Pacific. Only she grew up in the Queensland capital Brisbane, hundreds of kilometres from her ancestral home in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.

“It was just like a little jungle,” the 32-year old artist says. “My mum pretty much transplanted PNG to our suburban backyard.”

Hilli was born to a PNG father and an Australian mother, and migrated to Australia aged two.

It was only when she got older that she began to feel uncomfortable with her place in Australian society as a child of mixed heritage.

“I’m neither completely PNG or completely Australian. I have always been made aware growing up that I never fitted in as well. I’ve always felt as though I’m struggling [between] two cultures.”

It’s a struggle many Pacific Islanders experience living in Australia. But increasingly there are more places for Pacific Islanders to “connect” in Australia. Some have dubbed it the ‘Pacific Wave’.

Hilli has played an influential role in fostering this burgeoning community. Two years ago she co-founded the Pacific Women’s Weaving Circle, a group that gathers each month in Melbourne’s west.

The women weave baskets, mats and fans that they sell at markets around Melbourne. But the group is about much more than weaving, Hilli says.

“It’s also about sharing culture, sharing food, sharing laughter and stories. The group was created out of a desire to connect with other Pacific Islander women, particularly because we don’t live near our families so we were feeling quite isolated.”

And while they might not use the traditional pandanus, their wares are made in the Pacific tradition—using what’s available. “We use anything we can get our hands on, ribbons, raffia, wire.”

Hilli has also taken a lead role in the Wantok Stori project, a filmmaking collaboration between Australia’s Pacific communities and young people living in Solomon Islands.

In April, she went to the capital Honiara with Melbourne-based documentary filmmaker Amie Batalibasi to facilitate the project.

Over two weeks they helped five young Solomon Islanders produce a short film on the theme ‘Culture in Harmony with Nature’ that will premiere at the Pacific Arts Festival in Honiara in July.

Those selected to participate in the project had contributed to an online discussion group (facebook.com/wantokstori) about issues affecting young Solomon Islanders, which was later used as inspiration for the film.

 

Male initiation in Orokolo culture

BY KIRSTEN IPI ARIA

PAPUA NEW GUINEA IS SAID to have over 800 different languages, stemming from its colourful collection of diverse cultures.

I want to write about a significant part of my own culture which is fascinating in both its concept and methodology.

Unfortunately, though, the topic here - the male initiation process - has died out in practice from the Orokolo culture due to various factors.

But I believe a revisit into what was this practice will be educational and helpful for today’s young people.

The male initiation played a vital and major role in how effectively the traditional society functioned. In fact, it provided the foundation in which our traditional society took its roots.

To begin, it’s worth mentioning that in the days of our forefathers, the family unit did not live together under one roof as is the case today. This is because while the women and children lived in the family house, the men mostly dwelt in an elavo or mans-house.

The elavo, a towering structure with its pointed thatch roof jutting out menacingly at the fore, was a men-only zone. Females were strictly forbidden from entering it or even loitering about within its perimeter.

The elavo was more than a house of assembly for men. It was the arena for the male initiation endeavour.

The initiation process, or the rite of passage into manhood for a young male child, began when he was taken to the elavo at an age of between 10 and 12 years old. Upon entering the elavo, the boy was wholly entrusted into the care of his kinsmen and elders within.

This meant that he would not see his mother, nor would she see him, for the duration of his stay in the elavo. This would not be significant but for the fact that the initiation process would last over the next 15-20 years of the boy’s life.

It is for this reason that I use the term initiation ‘process’ and not initiation  ceremony as this was not a ceremony or ritual that lasted a couple of days or months but, as stated, took years to complete.

The boy who entered the elavo would have to get accustomed to growing up with the men. Having had all relations with his mother severed, he quickly learned that he had entered into the next phase of life, wherein he had to abandon any childish behaviour or mindset which he may have displayed prior to entering the elavo.

While the boys remained in the elavo, the elders decided what, how and when things would be done for them. Even the meals they took were monitored. For instance, whenever a boys’ mother brought him food, an elder would receive it and taste-test the food before giving it to the boy concerned.

A woman knew that if the elders didn’t approve of the food she brought it would be rejected. Therefore, she made sure to prepare and deliver the best meal for her son in the elavo.

Women, diplomacy and the art of relationships

BY SCOTT WAIDE

MY BINANDERE CULTURE is a warrior culture.  One that once prided itself on conquest, expansion of territory and on the ability of its young warriors.

But the great battles fought over long distances to lay claim to enemy held lands wasn’t the central part of my people’s existence.

Diplomacy was of utmost importance, and the skills to prevent violence through diplomatic means was and still is highly valued.

Such skill didn’t come into play only to prevent war. It was part of everyday life.

Brothers  resolved issues by talking for hours or even days so that their present disagreements didn’t affect their relationship and their children’s relationships in future.

To offend someone physically or verbally was costly.  It was the equivalent of an expensive lawsuit in today’s justice system.  

Resolving the issue involved an apology and compensation, which included payment in the form of a pig and other gifts.

While the men provided protection as warriors of the clan or tribe, their economic power both in peacetime and in times of war rested on the women.  

A man’s wealth and status in his society, and his ability to negotiate the terms of a diplomatic solution on behalf of his family or clan, hinged on his woman’s skill to raise pigs.  The foundation of a man’s success depended on the woman.

Women were highly valued members of our society.  They were our mothers who gave us life. They were key in the man’s economic and political status and they raised the warriors who laid claim to new land and resources.

Traditionally, women were marked to become wives. But that didn’t stop girls from choosing their future husbands if they so wished.  In many instances, a girl would take her possessions and go to the family of the man she wished to marry and be accepted as part of the household.

Land ownership the Bougainville way

BY SIMON GARANA

AS THE SAYING GOES, without food and water one cannot survive.  If the saying also applies to land it is true to itself because it is only land that must provide food and water.

Therefore, whether through the matrilineal or patrilineal society one has to acquire and own land especially by inheritance.  And this inheritance must continue for many years from generation to generation.

It is very important that the trend of ownership follow the same process.  If the process is not followed it may lead to land disputes or bloodshed.

Land has a number of definitions, and the three that must be noted are the solid part of the earth surface, ground as used for farming, or a country or nation. 

In Bougainville land is acquired through the matrilineal system except for Buin which is through the patrilineal system.  Land is owned by a clan.  Every clan must have a chief who oversees all matters relating to land.  They have to make sure land is used wisely and that there is no land dispute, especially when the population is increasing.

Historically it is believed many people on Bougainville migrated from New Ireland some 28,000 years ago.  Since then people have led normal lives with fishing and gardening.

Good leadership played its role in allowing people to respect land ownership by avoiding land disputes.  It was a process emphasised throughout Bougainville to make sure the ownership was permanent with genuine understanding and respect from both sides.

Bougainville wants to overcome what has been experienced in PNG and other parts of the world especially Africa.  It wants to control and manage land for its people. 

With the establishment of its Autonomous Bougainville Government, multi-million foreign mining companies are not allowed to mine without its approval.  The experience from the Panguna mine has taught Bougainville a lesson and it is very careful with its dealing with foreign companies. 

For the villagers in Panguna can no longer go fishing or gardening because the land has been turned into a pit 700 feet deep under by a huge mining company.

Development in its definition means something that has been developed or development area where new industries are encouraged by government for employment and change.  We have to make sure development benefits the very people who own the land.  Bougainville needs development in order to progress.

Now that it has experienced the Panguna mine land dispute, negotiations have become key: negotiations to try to reach an agreement and to get over any difficulty. 

Already there have been a number of negotiations in Bougainville where foreign companies are willing to establish palm oil, fishing and mining industries.  Through the negotiation process, the Autonomous Bougainville Government is really making sure that the landowners are heavily involved.

The blond haired riddle of the Solomons

BY ROB WAUGH
DAILY MAIL (LONDON)

THE INHABITANTS OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS are very dark-skinned - but have puzzled scientists for decades with their blond hair.

Now a genetic study has found that the islanders have a 'homegrown' gene that gives them blond hair - and it's different from the one in Europeans.

‘Its frequency is between 5 and 10% across the Solomon Islands, which is about the same as where I'm from,’ said study author Dr Eimear Kenny.

Globally, blond hair is rare, occurring with substantial frequency only in northern Europe and in Oceania, which includes the Solomon Islands and its neighbors.

Many assumed the blond hair of Melanesia was the result of gene flow — a trait passed on by European explorers, traders and others who visited in the preceding centuries.

The islanders themselves give several possible explanations for its presence - they generally chalked it up to sun exposure, or a diet rich in fish, say the researchers.

‘Within a week we had our initial result. It was such a striking signal pointing to a single gene — a result you could hang your hat on. That rarely happens in science,’ said Kenny. ‘It was one of the best experiences of my career.’

In terms of genetic studies, the analysis was straightforward said Kenny.

But gathering the data was more difficult. Much of the Solomon Islands is undeveloped, without roads, electricity or telephones.

It's also one of the most linguistically diverse nations in the world, with dozens of languages spoken.

Hanuabadans: a people on the verge of extinction

BY SCOTT WAIDE

  

ARUA ARUA MIRIA, a Motuan from Hanuabada is an angry man. Over the years, his people have seen their traditional hunting and fishing grounds taken from them through “legal’ and illegal means.

Like many other Papua New Guinean communities, Motuan land was communally owned until the arrival of the British in 1884. Commodore James Erskine raised the Union Jack on Motuan land, declared it a protectorate of the British Empire and made laws that – over time – took away the land rights of the traditional landowners.

“The white man arrived just 200 years ago. We were here 2000 years before they arrived,” Miria says.

“They brought their laws – laws that took away our rights. Our ancestors placed their fingerprints on agreements, documents they didn’t understand.”

High rise buildings, nightclubs and offices stand on what used to be traditional hunting grounds. Beachfronts were reclaimed by a construction company in the 1990s and is now the site of multimillion dollar developments.

On the opposite side of the harbour, the InterOil refinery stands in stark contrast to the savannah surroundings. The large processing tanks shimmer in the afternoon sunlight.

This is the latest development that has imposed new restrictions on the Motuan way of life. There is now an invisible buffer zone in front of the refinery where speedboats aren’t allowed.

Boga Daroa, another Motuan elder, sits in his home and faces towards the city of Port Moresby. His view of the refinery is obstructed by the corrugated roofing of his neighbours house.

“We’re seafaring people, how can you stop us from using the sea?”

Today, the break down of their society is evident as elders struggle to maintain order amongst a large population of young people. The Motuans of Hanuabada have become a group of people on the verge of extinction.

With no more land to plant food and a polluted seafront, the elders are now beginning to hold discussions about land rights.

Pacific museums - a foreign and unfamiliar concept

BY PHIL FITZPATRICK

Grandfather’s treasures may be hidden
Yet thru a new eye must I ever peek
For glimpses my days have forbidden
                        -- My Father’s Bilum by Jeffrey Febi

‘Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes: The Masterpieces Exhibition’, Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery by Barry Craig, Mark Busse and Soroi Eoe is published by Crawford House Publishing Australia.  It costs $89.95.  Check the website www.crawfordhouse.com.au to order a copy.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY of Papua New Guinea has a multitude of roles.  It keeps and conserves cultural, historical and natural collections, carries out research, educates the public through exhibitions and publications and enforces cultural heritage legislation.

While Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes discusses these multitudinous roles the bulk of the book is taken up with a catalogue of the 209 cultural artefacts in The Masterpieces Exhibition on display in the public gallery.  In this it is highly successful; the minutiae surrounding each item are fascinating.

Barry Craig is the editor and, even though he graciously acknowledges help from many sources, this is really his book.  He has done the hard yards and his contributions take up well over 80% of the text. 

The book is very handsome with a beautiful layout and is a credit to the publisher, Crawford House. 

Unfortunately, it is also a relatively expensive book, retailing at around $90 or K180, which very few ordinary Papua New Guineans could afford.  This fact prompted me to wonder about the cultural elitism which surrounds the business of collecting indigenous artefacts.

Never having been an avid collector of artefacts, I’ve often wondered what motivates the zealous collectors of the world.  It all seems to work one way: Europeans collecting indigenous things.  I’ve yet to stumble across a tribesman in the jungle hoarding a cache of old and obsolete European stuff. 

The idea of collecting or salvaging artefacts from rapidly changing and/or ‘dying’ culture is a recurring theme in the history of many museums, including the one in Port Moresby. 

While this aim might be laudable it begs the question of how it can be possible to represent such a vast array of cultural diversity in one collection in one building.  Is that possible, even in a representative sense?

Barry Craig notes that artefacts from the Sepik make up about a quarter of the museum’s collection.  There also seems to be a heavy bias towards New Guinea; Papua doesn’t get much of a look in.

In the discussion about watercraft, for instance, the magnificent Gogodala carved and painted racing canoes of Western province score a photograph and a passing reference but no discussion; they do get a short run under Gardening and Fertility Figures however.

In this sense, anyone looking for a representative survey of Papua New Guinean cultural artefacts should perhaps look elsewhere.  It is a decidedly geographically patchy collection which is really a drop in the bucket of a vast cultural tradition.  That said the authors do an admirable job working with what they’ve got, which is, after all, the intent of the book.

The museum harks back to the 1950s and the bulk of the collections until well after independence in 1975 came from Europeans.  While Michael Somare is and was enthusiastic it’s hard to know what the average Papua New Guinean feels about the museum.

Of late there has been a debate going on in Papua New Guinea, mostly on the blogosphere, about things that the Australian colonisers left behind.

The argument runs to the effect that the leaders of the country and the educated elite in particular have inherited a colonial mindset and are maintaining what many see as wholly unsuitable institutions.  It is interesting to speculate where the National Museum and Art Gallery and in particular its artefact collections fit into this equation.

Soroi Marepo Eoe says in his chapter, “For many Pacific peoples, dead should be buried; certain artefacts should be destroyed after they have been used in ceremonies.  Museums in the Pacific still are seen today as a foreign, unfamiliar concept”. 

We are told in the book that the artefacts are not just old pieces of carved wood decorated with paint and shells but are the embodiment of actual spirits.  This is where the title comes from, with the phrase being attributed to Michael Somare.

Papua New Guineans undoubtedly understand how an artefact might be regarded as a spirit-incarnate in its original setting but they must wonder why it is necessary to lock up all these disparate spirits from all over the place in a single building.

Think of the chaos such a mixed spiritual crowd represents, no one in their right mind would step into such a place they might think.

Indeed, the exhibits in the gallery, as well as in the book, are quite spooky, especially with the selective lighting.  The Papua New Guinean staff in the museum must have nerves of steel.  It might take a few more generations before the average Papua New Guinean feels comfortable in there.

A few years ago I went to the museum on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.  There was very little of a cultural nature there.  The most impressive item was a large bass drum made out of local materials but copied from the British version.  It was made to accompany islanders marching into church services.

When I enquired about items of a more traditional nature I was politely informed by the friendly staff that the early missionaries had destroyed it all; either that or it had long ago been carted away by European collectors. I’ve visited other museums in the South Pacific and seen much the same thing. 

Ironically, the staff of these museums seemed more relieved than sad at the dearth of any representative local artefact collection.  I’ve asked people about this in other places and have come to the conclusion that for many South Pacific communities’ museums full of primitive art is more of an embarrassment than pride.  This is understandable I guess; who wants to be reminded in this modern day and age, that one’s forbears used to live without steel or wheels.

Late last year we were reading about the battle of wills going on at the museum over access to the cheque books.  At the same time we were also learning about the appalling neglect of the institution by a seemingly uncaring government.  A building so poorly maintained that on more days than not its doors were closed, the power off and the telephones silent.

We shrugged.  It was simply just another microcosm of the greed and neglect that is mirrored in similar institutions all over the country. 

What we didn’t read about at the time was what was behind those doors, the raison d’etre for the building being there in the first place. This book answers that question, at least in part and in style.

Malah’s initiation to womanhood

BY HILDA FROMAI YERIVE

This story is from real life but the people’s names have been changed

MALAH WAS BORN TO KENYA AND PREMONG, hailing from Sembi village near Wewak on the west coast of East Sepik Province along the highway to the Papua New Guinea - Indonesia border.

Unlike in other parts of the Province, famous for boy’s initiations in the haus tambaran (spirit house), here girls not boys are initiated because of their important role as future mothers.

”Malah! Wake up, your mother has gone to the beach and the sun is up, you never sleep-in,” Malah’s father Kenya yelled,

Malah hesitated. She was not sleeping; she had been awake before dawn.  Kenya knew his daughter was not like the other village girls; she was up before the rest of the household and doing her chores for the day.

Being a community leader, people come to discuss community issues, so Kenya makes sure his house is in order. Premong had taught her only daughter everything expected of a girl in the family.

Malah was unusually quiet; she was in her room in the house she shared with her parents. She had panicked when she woke up in the night and found her bed soiled. Frightened by her situation she was confused and did not know how to tell her father.

Soon after Kenya left, she quickly crept to the rear end of the house and signalled her cousin Wagha.  Seeing the fear in Malah’s face, Wagha hurried over. Nervously she broke the news, whispering to Malah that she was having her first menstruation.

Wagha was older and comforted Malah and explained what she should do next.  At that instant Malah realised that the most memorable and eventful chapter of her life history had begun.

Because of her father’s status in the community, her mother had prepared her in advance and encouraged her to be brave.

A girl’s initiation always arouses great excitement in the village so news spread fast. Garamut drums were beating continuously, sending messages throughout the communities. Quickly, a cone shaped hut called a popongah (moon house) was built from coconut fronds for her to stay in for the next two weeks.

Normally, the timeframe would depend on childhood behaviour. If she had been naughty and disobedient; she would remain for a longer period while the elderly womenfolk imposed tough rules and guidelines on her.

Malah had been good, so she stayed only two weeks. She was allowed only food cooked in charcoal with tea and no protein (she must learn to sacrifice).

Villagers were invited to a night of singing and feasting on the last night before she was let out of the popongah. Kenya was famous so many people had come with contributions of food, money and gifts. That evening the villagers gathered and scattered into groups of their favourite singing partners.

The singing started. Terek-Masisia (poetic songs) were sung with no musical instruments; specially composed with rhyming words depicting fond memories of meaningful events or descriptions of someone’s behaviour or silly attitudes.

It's a sad story: sorcery-related violence on the rise

BY CATHERINE WILSON
INTER PRESS SERVICE NEWS

AN INCREASE IN SORCERY-RELATED VIOLENCE and fatalities over the last decade in Papua New Guinea is generating awareness about the lack of development, economic opportunities, inequality and under-resourced health services in rural areas.

In late March, 70-year-old Seni and his 32-year-old son Konia (not their real names) were accused of sorcery following the sudden death of their granddaughter and niece whom they had accompanied to the nearest hospital in the town of Kundiawa for medical attention.

"We brought her to the hospital on Saturday and on Sunday she died and we took her back to the village," Konia recounted. "We don’t know what the cause of her death was."

They were then violently attacked by members of their family and community in a small village in the rural district of Gumine in the Simbu Province.

"When we went to the funeral in the village, we went to where the body was," Konia continued. "Then the people started coming out and attacking us."

Konia and his father sustained serious physical injuries.

"They used bush knives. They cut me with a bush knife on my back and shoulder," Konia said. "Then they took me to the (village) toilet, tied me up and pushed my head down into the toilet."

Seni, the elderly father, was beaten until he fell to the ground face-down.

"They then used their boots to kick me on my sides, my back and on my neck until I was unconscious," Seni remembered. "If I had laid face-up, I would have been dead."

The following morning, both father and son were rescued when Konia’s sister Eva (not her real name) telephoned a friend living in Kundiawa who subsequently alerted the police.

IPS News fears that Eva’s efforts to save their lives have placed her own in danger, as attempts to contact her by mobile phone since the incident have failed.

In PNG, 85% of the population live in rural areas where animist spiritual beliefs still influence everyday life and are conveyed to younger generations through oral history.

Jack Urame, director of the Melanesian Institute in Goroka, Eastern Highlands, claims that most Melanesians believe in the existence of sorcery or black magic, known as sanguma.

"When someone dies or if someone is sick, even if there is a medical examination and report of the causes, people still believe it is sorcery," Urame explained.

"Sorcery and witchcraft is a way of explaining this phenomenon, the bad events happening around them."

Naturally obedient kids

BY DAVID GONOL

YES, OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE, but it does not come about as easily as one might think.  To attain obedience one has to pay the price.  What then is the price one has to pay?

I believe the price is sacrifice.  One has to put aside other commitments or schedules to obey somebody.

For little Rodney and Nathaniel of Marapa village in the Western Highlands Province obedience is natural.  It is part of their day to day life.  Even though they are small in size, they truly know exactly what role they are required to play in their families.

For instance, before they go out to the communal grounds for their usual childhood games they must make sure that they fetch water and look after their younger siblings. They must also help their mothers to prepare dinner every day.

These young children are truly unique when compared with children of their age in urban areas like Port Moresby.  The unique thing about them is their joy in obeying their parents.  They don’t see this as a burden but rather a duty which is exclusively theirs. 

If they don’t fetch water or look after their younger siblings, then who will do it? Certainly not their parents because they know that their mothers’ job is to garden, prepare food and feed the family whereas the fathers’ job is to build houses, mend fences, and collect firewood.

These children don’t really care if it means that they have to walk for miles just to fetch water, they do so because they know that that is their duty. They do this not only out of a sense of obligation but out of joy too. For the same reason they also look after their young siblings from sunrise to sunset while their mother is busy gardening or preparing food for the family.

The opposite is true with the children in the urban areas. Many of the children in the urban areas are disobedient and lazy. They sometimes think fetching water from the cooler in the house is too much work.  Their counterparts in rural areas like Rodney and Nathaniel walk miles just to draw water not in a small glass but in many big four or five litre containers.

Therefore these children are truly unique. Their sense of morality is very strong. As young as they are, they already know what to do and what not to do. You will hardly ever find them stealing anything like sugar cane or fruit from other people’s gardens.

I’m glad that I came across Rodney Nathaniel during my Christmas break. I didn’t just take a quick photo of them and keep walking because I was impressed by their great shape and mood. After I took their photo I also asked them where it was that they were on their way to with such heavy containers of water.

Their answer really astounded me. This is what they said, “We always obey our parents by fetching water or looking after our younger siblings because our Sunday school teacher tells us that we must always obey our parents. If we obey our parents always, then Jesus will bless and reward us with long life. So that’s why we fetch water and obey what our parents tell us to do.”

I didn’t say anything further and went my own way. As I went I kept pondering their simple faith.  I said to myself, ‘Oh God, now I know why you said, ‘Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’ (Mt. 19: 14).

Migration & mythology: my progenitors from Shortland

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

THE ORAL HISTORIES of people in the Kieta area of Bougainville and all of South Bougainville record that the original inhabitants of these places came across the Bougainville Strait from what is now the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.

Geography, traditions, cultures and language support this fact. The most recent immigrants along this route into Bougainville were the Torau’an, who today occupy Rorovana, Tarara and Vito villages in Central Bougainville.

The Torau’ans did not come into Bougainville by chance. The route was well known to them. It was a crossing made by their kinsmen long before.

They saw their lost kinsmen’s descendants’ criss-crossing the Bougainville Strait much later on peaceful visits or to trade as well as to make war and carry out bride kidnappings.

So, they also set paddled across and up the East Coast of Bougainville.

All these adventures or interactions, were guided, nurtured or blessed by Bougainvillean gods. Known across Melanesia to dwell in the wilderness, these gods were venerated or paid homage to in order to gain positive results in all endeavours.

Before the Torau’ans, my Basikaang clan ancestors crossed this sea passage into the coastal areas of Buin. In their company was their god and totem, Barama the eel.

Barama was the shepherd of my ancestors. He dictated what to do and what not to do. He was the security and provider. When angered or saddened, he attacked and killed his minders and enemies alike. The duty of my people was to pacify him through food offerings and by living a good life in his presence.

After generations passed, my ancestors reached Haisi in Siwai. Here they dwelled for years and multiplied. Later on they moved into the wilderness of the Banoni area and settled down in the Birosii plains of Bana District. For ages they colonised this area and slowly began to move further northward to the Nagovis area.

In Nagovis, they maintained their presence for a prolonged period in the Takemari area on the Nagovis plains and at O’karu, a mountain area of Nagovis bordering Kieta’s Kongara area villages.

It was from Takemari that the idea to conquer the mountainous Panguna area of Kieta was born. Their O’karu relatives would come from the mountains and prompt them to explore the bluish ridges to the north-east. Hunters that reached the Pagara River also reported that yonder on the edges of Nagovis there were wild mountains. Both of these things excited Barama and his human relatives.

So one fine day, a woman told a gathering: ‘Ning baru’baru e ono’ai nani’ (I will move and settle a bit further). She said this pointing in the direction in which the gatherers and hunters said the great Pagara River flowed.

Cyber zoo to preserve endangered languages

PRESS ASSOCIATION / BRISBANE TIMES

A ''ZOO'' FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES has been set up on the internet in a bid to save thousands of ancient tongues from extinction.

Eight new ''talking dictionaries'' have been unveiled by linguists who journeyed to some of the most remote corners of the world in search of vanishing languages.

They feature more than 32,000 written words, 24,000 audio recordings of native speakers pronouncing words and sentences, as well as photos of cultural objects.

One of the dictionaries features Matukar Panau, a Papua New Guinean language which has only 600 surviving speakers.

Before the Enduring Voices team began studying it three years ago, the language had never been recorded or written.

Of the nearly 7,000 tongues spoken on Earth today, more than half may be gone by the end of the century.

The talking dictionaries initiative from National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices project is an attempt to prevent these ancient languages being forgotten.

In some cases, it is the first time a language has been recorded or written down.

Dr David Harrison, from Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, US, one of the linguists creating the dictionary, said: ''Endangered language communities are adopting digital technology to aid their survival and to make their voices heard around the world. This is a positive effect of globalisation.''

Bible translators help preserve Biem language

NEW TRIBES MISSION

THE BIEM PEOPLE IN Papua New Guinea have a complete spoken language, but they have no word for "read." The Biem have always been an oral society and have no written form of their language.

Consequently, for quite some time the elders of the island have been concerned about losing their language, reports New Tribes Mission. According to the Joshua Project, there are only 3,100 Biem speakers.

Since 2009, Wayne and Gail Chen have worked along with others of their team to learn Biem culture and language, as well as to build relationships with the Biem people. They have become proficient Biem speakers and have been working with two other families to create a written Biem.

After 13 years of hard work, they have finally succeeded.

Recently, 23 students enrolled in the first Biem literacy class. This literacy work is essential to the Bible translation project which is now under way.

Shining a light on Bougainville’s Meekamui

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

BOUGAINVILLE HAS BEEN one of Oceania’s hot political topics since the 1960s.

Renowned leaders like the late Sir Paul Lapun held the wheel of Papua New Guinea national politics as it related to Bougainville for most of those decades.

But people today neglect the fact that the Bougainville nationalist movements were fuelled by lesser known men.

These were community leaders often labelled by as ‘cargo cultist’. One of the better known of these groups, Meekamui, often wrongly, associated with the late Francis Ona, was created and led by Damien Dameng of Panguna’s Irang-Panga area.

Damien Dameng was born in 1930 at his Dong’tare hamlet in Irang. He was educated in various Catholic Mission schools around the period of World War II. In the early 1960s, he did Standards 9 and 10 at Saint Joseph’s Rigu in Kieta. And this is where he came to resent the Catholic Church.

After completing Standard 10 around 1963 he was offered a place at Tsiroge in Buka to train as a teacher. However, having been influenced by movements like the Hahalis Welfare Society on Buka island, he left for his village and shut down a Catholic Mission station at Irang.

Within weeks of bargaining and protesting against CRA exploration, he got himself good following and support.  Thus born was his ‘government’, which he called, Meekamui Pontoku Onoring, which I explain in a moment.

He established himself at Irang village and stretched his influence across the Panguna District, closing a number of community schools.

His ideal was that Bougainville’s political structures would uphold the principle outlined by the concept, Meekamui Pontoku Onoring.  He believed that being slaves to colonial rule was killing Bougainvilleans by introducing impurities like New Guineans and what he saw as their evil cultures.

The terminology, Meekamui Pontoku Onoring, comes from the Bougainville’s Nasioi language spoken mostly in Central’s Kieta area.

Meekamui is the ‘holy land’. According to Dameng, the island should remain as it was before the Whiteman and Redskins came. To him, all rivers, boulders and like objects have their spirits and intrusion has victimised them.

Pontoku refers to ‘ancestral sacred sites’. A government to be called a Bougainvillean, must be a ‘homage paying’ body of leadership to the holy sites of various clans in Bougainville.

In Bougainville and the Solomons’ Western Province (also jet-black people), the Pontoku are the power base of clans.

And lastly Onoring means ‘we are secure’. This term was uprooted from the old culture which had it that ‘at home I am a master to all strangers’.

The late Francis Ona took up the Meekamui concept in the early 1990s and since then it has greatly affected Bougainville’s politics.

A few introductory tips on PNG matchmakers

BY PETER KRANZ

BEWARE OF THOSE PNG matchmakers

Am I being sexist or racist?

No, I am talking from experience.

I don't think I am particularly prejudiced, and I am happily married to a lovely PNG woman.

Matchmaking seems to be an occupational option for older PNG women beyond a certain age.

They may have nieces, daughters or cousins whom they truly believe could make a better life for themselves and their children. So whities are fair game.

They engage in matchmaking on an industrial scale.

This may not be much spoken about, but is a fact of life.

If you're an expat in PNG you will be approached by an older lady giving you an unmissable opportunity from a young lady who has seen you from afar and wishes to give her undying love to you (plus of course her mother, uncles, nephews and neices and several cousin-brothers).

It progresses from there.

Maybe you are naive enough to invite the young lady around for dinner (invariably she is beautiful).

Then you are hooked.

And the relos descend.

I found a way of countering this. I said to prospective matchmakers - "Meri bilong mi lon Simbu" [‘My wife is from Simbu’]

They get rather worried when told this and made a hasty retreat.

This leaves open the question of how I got to meet Rose, and what she is up to now organising certain things with her sisters.

C'est la vie, as we say in Tok Pisin.

Return New Ireland artwork, says PNG group

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

A PAPUA NEW GUINEA non-government organisation is calling for traditional artworks from New Ireland Province to be repatriated.

A curator working with Malagan artworks at New Zealand’s Otago Museum says he has been told by local people that there is no need to return the pieces.

Malagan art is created as part of traditional ceremonies to honour people who have died, and is traditionally destroyed or given away.

But Jenny Homerang from the Re-Creating the Village organisation says sometimes the works are preserved to be used again

“There has never been any museum that I know of, that has tried to work with the local communities from which these objects have been removed,” Ms Homerang said.

“We’ve never had any kind of community outreach programs with the museums, or the museums with us, there’s no kind of contact with us. It’s almost as if they’re saying to us that we don’t exist.”

Our forebears’ practices deserve our accolades

BY FRANCIS NII

PAPUA NEW GUINEANS TODAY SHOULD BE PROUD of our ancestors for their sapience in containing the deadly diseases tuberculosis and leprosy from spreading and killing the people in the period prior to the western influence.

Before western medicine was introduced into Papua New Guinea our ancestors already had their own traditional medicines and preventive methods for controlling curable and none curable diseases, chiefly TB and leprosy.

Tuberculosis and leprosy were recognised throughout PNG as communicable and deadly diseases well before western influence. The people had no traditional cures for the diseases, particularly leprosy, but they developed other methods to prevent the diseases from spreading and killing them off.

Confinement of the victims was one way of isolating the diseases from spreading. If a person contracted any of the diseases and it became known through the onset of the symptoms, the information would filter quickly throughout the community. Everyone would know about it and stay away from the victim.

The victim, like every other member of the tribe, being  knowledgeable of the rules governing the prevention of the spread of TB and leprosy, would  confine him or herself to his or her home. He or she would be restricted from going out and interacting with the rest of the people; bathing and fishing in the waters; and hunting and collecting firewood in the bushes etc.

Only the close relatives would bring food, water and firewood and leave them at the door of the victim's home. The victim would collect the items after the relatives had left. 

Whenever the relatives would like to talk to the sick person, they would stay some distance away and talk.

The village chiefs would constantly monitor the condition of the victim by asking the relatives or sending spies to observe and report back. If by any chance the sick person, particularly a TB victim, got healed, the person was free to live a normal life.

On the contrary, if the chiefs learned that the victim's condition had gotten worse, they would meet in secret and issue a decree for elimination of the victim from the community.

A squad of strong young men would be appointed to carry out the decree.

There were several methods that the people practised . One popular way was arson. The squad of young men would set fire to the victim's house at night while the victim was fast asleep. The squad would make sure that the victim was burnt to death and did not escape.

The other popular method was drowning the victim in a big river or sea. The squad would tie a rope around the neck of the victim and drag him or her to the river or sea and drown them. Then they would cut the rope and leave the corpse behind to be washed away or eaten by crocodiles and fishes.

Spearing and poisoning the victim were the other methods.  Spearing a victim was  carried out mainly when the victim misbehaved by going into the no-go zones and/or engaged in restricted activities, for example, bathing in the streams.

The most lenient method was confining the victim in a deep inescapable cave until he or she died. The victim was dragged to the cave by tying a rope around the neck and left there. The relatives would from time to time bring food and water and let it down into the cave by rope. The rope was pulled back after the food was taken. This continued until the food was not taken from the rope. Then the relatives knew the victim was dead. They would stop bringing foods to the cave.

A day in the comfortable life of a highlands pig

BY AMBAI MARY *

I KNEW A LADY WHO TOOK HER PIGLETS to the market every day with her in an old pram.

Like all of us they need love and affection.

And - just like unruly kids - she couldn't trust them on their own back home.

Pigs have sensitive skin and need to be protected from the sun or they can get sunburned.

Each morning, my Grandma used to dust them with the previous night's ashes from the fire then take them to a mud wallow, where they could roll round and get the mud good and deep into their skin.

Then they would be allowed to root around in the shade of the trees until evening, constrained by leg-leashes. Then down to the river for a swim. It is important to wash them free of mud and insects.

Then it is home to bed in the sty - or maybe in the kitchen house in a special pen. They help keep the place warm.

I have slept in a kitchen house with pigs in the pen next to me. It's rather reassuring hearing them grunting and snoring through the night. (Yes, pigs snore).

* Ambai Meri is the pen name of the author, who is known to the editor.  The piece was written anonymously because of the writer’s anxiety about some prejudicial attitudes in Australia

Cave people’s surprising message to modern world

BY MARK JENKINS
Photograph by Amy Toensing

SHE IS LYING IN A CAVE, dying. Legs and arms but knobby sticks, Lidia Maiyu is curled up close to the campfire. Her eyes are wide in apprehension of death.

She coughs, her body convulses, and she cries out in pain. Lidia is perhaps 15 years old, she isn't sure. Three months ago she gave birth, and the baby died; the group left the body in a cave and moved on.

Pasu Aiyo, Lidia's husband, tells me this is what happens. "When you get sick, you get better or you die."

But for the glow from the campfire, it is impenetrably dark. Never are there stars, as if that would be too much to hope for. Instead, beyond the rock overhang, it's pouring, waves of water relentlessly slapping the giant fronds of the jungle.

It always seems to rain at night here in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. This is why Lidia and what's left of her people, the Meakambut, seek refuge in rock shelters—they're dry.

Located high in the cliffs, sometimes requiring a treacherous climb up vines, caves are also natural fortresses that once protected the Meakambut from their enemies: headhunters and cannibals and bride stealers. But that was generations ago. Now their enemies are less violent yet no less deadly: malaria, tuberculosis.

Pasu shoos away Biyi, their hunting dog, and sits down by the fire. He smooths his leaf loincloth and rests Lidia's head in his lap. She peers up at him wanly. Pasu gravely tells his brother John to ask us if there is anything we can do.

Source: National Geographic.  You can read this excellent article in its entirety here

Up close and personal in Hanuabada

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

I AM SITTING AT THE TABLE going through the photos I have taken earlier at Hanuabada.

I’ve made myself a cup of sweet black coffee and filled a glass of cold water to cool myself down after drinking my coffee.

My phone buzzes and I check the message.  My friend in Lae sends a message quoting Aristotle.  I’ve never read Aristotle so I send back a rather confused message and browse through the photographs.

There are the four Dubu – totem poles set up to signify the beginning of Hanuabada village including Elevala, although proud Elevalans obstinately prefer being identified separately from Hanuabadans.

The four Dubu form two gates facing each other. The gates remind me of the Sun gates to eternity found in Oriental and Mayan cultures.  A power pole stands rather abusively close to the four poles.

I’m at Hanuabada with my buddy Nou, a brilliant blogger and law student, and Vladislav, a Russian freelance photographer.

Vladislav wanted to photograph the Wanigela houses at Koki but I told him I could arrange for something at Hanuabada since I don’t know any Wanigelas at Koki.

In any case I thought we’d get a few shots of the signature houses on stilts and leave.

Well, Nou gave us a grand tour of the Big Village and Vlad found many interesting subjects to photograph as I tagged along beside these two larger than life characters.

The Big Village gave us the Nation’s Capital and is perhaps the cradle of nationhood given the fact that Erskine declared British Dominion here and the colonial government set up shop nearby.

Hanuabada encapsulates in many ways, the contrasts and contradictions of Papua New Guinea.

Even with its rusted tin roofs and close proximity to the CBD, it has wobbly bridges linking homes stilted above water and is a very traditional conservative Motuan village.

Brand new vehicles drive past rusty old homes built by allied forces after World War II. And after over 200 years of colonisation/urbanisation I heard Motu being spoken at Hanuabada.

The villagers are very friendly. On a warm sunny Sunday afternoon they sleep peacefully in their naturally air conditioned homes and on the bridges.

The cool sea breeze provides respite from the scorching Sun albeit with a touch of olfactory nuisance from the garbage piled under the homes.

The buildup of garbage is related to the changing onshore currents as the shoreline of Port Moresby Harbour is modified by reclamation of land from the sea.

These land reclamation projects have caused deviations in the onshore currents thus causing deposition of wastes at Elevala instead of sweeping them out to sea.

Obviously, Nasfund isn’t going to dig up Harbour City but its project may be causing the tort of nuisance to the people of Hanuabada if it can be proven that the extension of reclaimed land has modified onshore currents leading to the creation of a public health hazard.

Source: The Namorong Report

The quest for a better life - the Galkope of Simbu

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

THE GALKOPE OF THE DIASPORA can be found in far off lands everywhere in Papua New Guinea. They left, and still leave, because of three primary reasons.

The first is because of the entrenched culture of tribal warfare, which can erupt at any moment over such disparate issues as women, pigs, land, elections and deaths by intent or accident.

The second is the lack of opportunity for economic advancement.  Related to this is the unsuitability of the Galkope lands for development due to the steep terrain and volatile weather patterns.

The third is sorcery. Many innocent people have been killed, tortured and injured because they were suspected by their neighbours and clansmen of causing events that are, in most cases, natural or attributable to logical causes.

These reasons are, for many Galkope, more compelling than their tribal affiliations.  They also presage a desire to live in peace and harmony.

In the early days of colonisation the Galkope men heard stories of the Leahy brothers who operated stores in Mount Hagen and Goroka and how there was a big road connecting the two places built in 1948.

From these stores, it was rumoured, one could buy - with money made from paper, metal and shell - all the white men’s wonderful goods. To get this money one had to work for the white men.

The trade stores that they had heard about reached their door step courtesy of the Catholic Church in the 1960s.  After two decades of rumours about money and western goods they finally saw both.  A few years’ later coffee trees were also introduced into the Galkope territory.

The Galkope men watched these economic developments with avarice and could see no reason why they couldn’t venture out and make a fortune for themselves.

Many of the clans reasoned that if they bought land along the Highlands Highway (later renamed the Okuk Highway after the pioneering politician) they would be able to tap into this economic development and make a lot of money with which to buy the white men’s goods.

In the late 1950s a Nimai Kane woman married Gandin of Kumai Dika Ku.  Mol, a niece of the woman, came up from Polko Yauro and stayed with her aunt at Kup.  As she grew up she courted a Muglwa Ku man called Apa and later married him. They lived at Moruma.

Mor, one of the chiefs of the Nimai Kane, followed his sister Mol to Moruma and lived at Armar.

When there was a pig killing festival in the Bari lands he rounded up all the pigs he had raised at Armar and took them to the festival to slaughter. The fattest of the pigs was called Moruma Nem.

Mor was wearing a loincloth made of cotton and had a steel axe swung over his right shoulder when he arrived at Ulwal with his pigs.  The Bari men were wearing traditionally woven loincloths and had stone axes.

When he killed the pigs during the pig killing festival all the Bari men admired the pigs’ fat and his European items as well.

“I raised the pigs at Armar,” said Mor proudly.

“Aaa… pah! Look at the fat. It is as thick as a banana stem,” said the Bari men with envy. After seeing Mor many of them considered leaving their lands and returning with him to Moruma.

Pigs were the only item of wealth among the Bari and there was much prestige attached to owning large and fat ones.

The scourge of sanguma

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

ONE RAINY NIGHT in March 2004 in Port Moresby, a lake close to the South Sea Evangelical Church near the junction of Eight and Nine Mile roads broke its banks and inundated the nearby savannah grassland before draining into the Waigani swamps and leaving its basin empty.

That morning everyone travelling to Port Moresby by PMV bus had a comment to make when they saw the empty lake.

“I heard that a taxi driver from Morata once travelled to Sogeri and saw a snake in the stones and caught it. Upon his return he decided not to keep it as a pet and stopped somewhere here and threw it into the lake,” said a well- dressed man who was travelling to work in a bus from Nine Mile to Gordons.

“The snake lived in the lake and fed on the fish. It grew into the size of a tree trunk but now that it has eaten all the fish it needed to go elsewhere for food. Hence it broke the lake and has gone into the swamps.”

Others who heard the story added and subtracted to it in their retelling and by the end of the week the story of the snake had been heard and commented on by all the residents of Port Moresby North East, Sogeri and their friends travelling in from the Hiritano Highway.

It became a suburban myth and the two daily newspapers ran pictures of the burst lake on their front pages. 

The curious thing about the myth is that it had been invented and spread by city people who were largely literate and well educated. No one thought to find out the real cause for the draining of the lake. They all went along with the myth and it assumed the status of fact.  Some were so convinced by the story that they regarded it as a biblical truth.

The people forgot that there was a big rain the night before the lake burst its banks. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that the wet season in Port Moresby had filled the lake to brimming over the last two months. They forgot all about the relationships between mass, pressure and kinetic energy that they had been taught in school.

That the relatively well educated people of Port Moresby were convinced of the perspicacity of what was patently an untrue myth tells us a lot about the status of sanguma in Papua New Guinea.  In some ways it places in perspective the beliefs about sanguma in more isolated areas like the Galkope. 

*******

A young man in the Bari with HIV was sick from an opportunistic infection caused by his defective immune system and admitted to Kundiawa General Hospital. 

A relative went and visited the young man in his hospital bed and took along some food, as was the custom. Soon after the relative left the hospital the young man died. The young man’s other relatives concluded that the visitor had used sanguma against him.

“Ekopro had recovered and was ready to be released from hospital when he visited and killed him. He is a well-known sorcerer in the Bari and everyone knows about him. We will take the body home and sort it out there,” cried the other relatives.

The news had already reached the accused sorcerer and his family and they were ready for a conflict when the body left the morgue and came home.

The Galkope of Simbu: in an existential wilderness

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

THE UNIQUE GALKOPE CULTURE HAS CRUMBLED. Structures like men’s huts, informal education, initiations to define manhood or womanhood, skills of dressing someone in traditional regalia, traditional rituals in warfare and the symmetry of combat, respect of neighbour, reverence for nature, sheer hard work, name and identity and the thousands more elements that made the Galkope a unique people in the universe have vanished.

The Galkope have vacated the land that their founding ancestor Alai Bia gave to them.

It is evident that, after many decades in far off lands, many Galkope have not found what they wanted. In fact, they have encountered in those places the very things which made them leave their traditional territory in the first place.

None of the Nimai Kane and Sipai Gauma people at Ganige and Wara Nomans have become successful businessmen. The Yuri, Dom, Erula Kunana Ku, Erula Nagen Ku and the Erula Nauro have had a similar fate.

They have yet to build permanent houses and find the peace and wellbeing that they crave.  Instead, they have surrendered to the mercies of the landlords, becoming their virtual slaves, acting to protect them and voting for whom they are told.

The relationship of the landowners and the Galkope of the diaspora are like the feudal systems in Europe of centuries ago. The Galkope of the diaspora have traded their identity for a dream that will never come true. 

 The signs and symptoms of hatred between the Galkope of the diaspora and the landowners who prey on them is already manifest. It is most evident in the highlands provinces but also in the New Guinea Islands, Momase and the Papuan regions.

The appeal of the Roman Catholic Church has been short lived as well. People no longer flock to the Church and actively participate like they used to do between the 1960s and the 1980s.

Since the 1990s most people, particularly the young, prefer to spend time in sporting activities, drugs, sex and other pursuits. Going to church is considered old fashioned and is a pastime reserved for the poor, elderly and the sick.

The second biggest church in the Simbu Province was located in the land of the Galkope.  By the mid 1990s it was only ever half filled on Sunday. The numbers of children in the school has also dropped dramatically, and only five to ten patients attend the health centre each day. These services have diminished simply because there aren’t enough people in the area.

Mipela ino inap? What the f***?

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

WHY DO ORGANISATIONS RUN BY EXPATS generally do better than those run by Papua New Guineans?

And why did Papua New Guinean civil servants and disciplinary forces perform better under the colonial administration than they do now?

There are various possible explanations and some may be more valid than what I’m about to discuss.

I suppose this discourse is a meditation on a story a heard recently about a recent university graduate who was too scared to present to a white man, so he’d tell his female colleague to “test the waters” ahead of him. Perhaps it was his inferiority complex that made him strive for perfection to please that white boss.

I also recall earlier this year, at the Institute of National Affairs, researcher Amanda Watson from Australia was presenting her PhD thesis on mobile phone usage in Madang Province.

After her presentation, a senior officer from the Bank of Papua New Guinea thanked her and suggested she should do a second study to compare with earlier work. I was horrified!  One would think that a senior central banker would be in a position to organise such research activity if the information was relevant to the Bank, particularly regarding mobile-based financial services.

It is an all too familiar sight at conferences, workshops and seminars that one sees a crowd of high ranking Papua New Guineans stating their own disempowerment and expecting some messiah to solve the problems and that of the country.

They focus on what they “lack” as opposed to the power and influence they have by virtue of the positions they hold in wither the public or private sectors.

And I recall at medical school how a colleague asked me why I was reading on project management and proposal writing. I told her that doctors were highly respected and influential members of the community. As such, there exists a potential for doctors to use their standing in the community to advocate change and bring about community development.

Furthermore, the doctor should be knowledgeable about dealing with development partners in achieving public health outcomes in community projects like water and sanitation.

I envisaged a much broader role of a medical practitioner than just the narrow focus that limits most doctors to clinical medicine.

There is a perverted psyche prevalent through wider society that the sheeple apply upon themselves religiously. It is expressed in phrases such as: mipela ino inap, ol lida mas wokim, lack of funds, lack of capacity, nogat moni, mipela mas kisim tok orait pastaim, etc.

Yet all of a sudden, if a foreign missionary, technical advisor, general manager or aid worker gets involved, there is a lot of activity as communities, organisations and individuals rally around the foreigner.

An essay: Is there more to us than meets the eyes?

BY MICHAEL DOM

THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUES IN LIFE are not complicated; rather the complexity of how we choose to live our lives makes it difficult to keep to those simple principles.

When faced with adversity we need to hold on to those values and search within ourselves for the courage to be more than meets the eyes.

I recently watched reruns of the successful Transformers series and enjoyed them very much for the umpteenth time. I grew up during the 1980s when Transformers, GI Joe and a whole lot of other animated cartoons were the highlight of a suburban kid’s Saturday morning.

And we didn’t find it the slightest bit odd to want to be like Optimus Prime, a ten-ton semi-trailer cab, or Sergeant Slaughter, a marine sergeant with a neck a thick as a log. Those were the days!

Now that Hollywood has made movies out of both weekend morning television programs, it feels like some kind of justification for all those lost hours of playtime.

But with so many fans, older and younger around the world (so I wasn’t alone!), you can probably understand why Hollywood was prepared to put in such enormous budgets to produce the movies.

Also, since digital technology is now able to do the fantastic things it does with graphics, we get to see all the transforming actions and fight scenes in slow motion, sound effects and all! Way cool!

But technology alone will not sell a movie, as other Hollywood flops have shown. So why has the Transformers series been such a box office hit?

Well, I’m no movie critic, and this is not an article for The Weekend Magazine, so I’m not going to deliver any behind-the-scenes systematic description of what makes a blockbuster movie work. You can get that enlightenment from a good documentary or Discovery Channel.

What I want to do is get to the heart of the matter – what did they teach us?

Art instructs. And movies, although created for entertainment, are an extension of drama, prose, acting, filming and other arts and techniques that I’m not familiar with. The aim is to relate to the needs of the audience, their fantasies, and their aspirations – to liberate our best dreams for tomorrow and to educate our hearts and minds on the path to their realization.

This is also true in comic action stories, which deal directly with the idea of good versus evil, for example Bat Man and Spiderman. The same may be true of animated cartoons, which originate from comic sketches or graphics depicting various characters, by artists, using their uninhibited creative imagination to fashion those characters out of almost every single object, plant and animal under the sun.

I think the successful progress of these animated cartoons into modern day movies was because the characters and the stories presented have captured the imagination and inspired hope in a generation of people. And many more good people, who would like these positive messages to live and to be passed on, found the means and have now done so.

Okay, call that perspective naïve, and no doubt the money to be made was a major driver, but I reckon that’s a pleasant way to look at how things worked out so well.

After 24 hours, political situation remains confused

BY KEITH JACKSON

6:30PM Well, after 24 hours of confusion we have, er, continuing confusion. I'll sign off this live blog here but, if there are other significant events this evening, we'll report on them.  Meanwhile it seems both political groupings in PNG have hunkered down for a long night's strategising - and good luck to both of them. Another 2,000 page views for PNG Attitude during the course of today have made this exercise even more worhwhile.  Thanks to all our readers. We'll do it again sometime.

6:15PM Liam Fox has just reported for the ABC from Port Moresby that the Governor-General's private secretary has told Peter O'Neill and his fellow politicians that Sir Michael Ogio will not talk to them.  A short time ago the group, variously estimated at 40-60 MPs, left the area of Government House.  The secretary said the Governor-General is "confused" by the Supreme Court decision and asked the politicians to "sort it out amongst themselves".

6:05PM The Governor-General is reported by the ABC to have urged the opposing contenders for PNG prime minister to 'sort out the issue amongst themselves'. It seems Sir Michael Ogio is seeking a political solution, which presumably will be resolved on the floor of parliament.

5:17PM Journalist Ilya Gridneff (now with the Sun-Herald) emails that he's on his way to Port Moresby "to sort things out".  Ilya spent two years in PNG with AAP until earlier in 2011.  The big media guns are being rolled into position!

5:10PM A PNG Attitude reader reports (and has been very assertive in offline comments to me) that Governor-General Michael Ogio is meeting with Peter O'Neill and is scheduled to meet with Sir Michael Somare tomorrow.  If this information is correct it could be that he is trying to assure himself whether a government can be formed.  If not, he may dissolve parliament and call a general election [see Harry Topham's comment].

Old men, the world beyond & sleepy afternoons

BY PHIL FITZPATRICK

ONE OF THE BENEFITS of having been a kiap on a remote patrol post is that you got to meet a lot of interesting people.

At Olsobip in the Star Mountains, which was a one-man show, I had the good fortune to encounter a pixie-like man called Fiamnok.

He was the Mamusi, or village constable, at Loubip, the hamlet just above the station.  Fiamnok and I spent many happy hours together chewing the fat.

One of the things we discussed was the supernatural and the power of the mind.  I had good reason to suspect that Fiamnok was a sorcerer; not of the evil kind but more as a healer and physic.

 He wielded a great deal of power in the valley and had the ability to make our hapless interpreter, Imbum, quake with his arrival at the office door.

During one of our first tentative discussions under the shade of his veranda he explained the local Faiwol custom of nang de, which as far as I could tell meant something like “eating the vine”.

It was a reference to the disturbing propensity of stressed-out Star Mountain people to take their own lives by hanging themselves.

Fiamnok, watching my face carefully so he could judge my reaction, described in vivid detail how a family high in the mountains had recently all suicided. 

They had done it in a low hut and it necessitated tying vines around their necks and to a cross beam in the roof and then actually lifting their legs off the floor.

While I was digesting this horrific scenario he went on to describe how their pigs had feasted on their legs and lower torsos.  His eyes positively twinkled as I tried to take this on board.

On another occasion he told me how he had managed to talk several people out of suicide over the years.  He explained that a lot of people resorted to such a drastic action through the fear that sorcery had been enacted against them.

His method had a firm foundation and understanding of what could be described as human psychology.  Sorcery and the belief in supernatural powers all occurred in the mind he explained.

His hypothesis was that the belief in the supernatural was borne out of need.  If you could identify the particular need at the time, he argued, it was possible to treat people and divert them from their destructive intentions.

As a young and impressionable kiap, I was most impressed by Fiamnok’s take on sorcery and the mind and I scribbled the bones of his argument into my Field Officer’s Journal.

What has made me think of Fiamnok now is the recent debate on PNG Attitude about whether Papua New Guinea is a Christian country.

Fiamnok was hosting a delightful couple from the Summer Institute of Linguistics in his hamlet and he had listened carefully to their attempts at proselytisation.  To his mind, as he explained to me, Christianity was very similar to sorcery in that it involved a belief in the supernatural.  On that basis he decided to stick with what he already knew.

Given the widespread belief in sorcery in Papua New Guinea one can conclude that while it may not specifically be a Christian country it is certainly a spiritual and religious one.  That is not to disparage Christianity and other religions, it is simply an observation.

I haven’t met many other people with the wisdom of Fiamnok.  In the 1980s I had the privilege of travelling several times with a very old Antakarinja man from the Western Desert called Mungatja.  As we went around visiting sacred sites with a little band of initiates he tried to articulate the difference between his society and mine.

He eventually decided that his people lived in their minds and had daily traffic with the supernatural while my people lived through our possessions and only occasionally had cause to consult the supernatural. 

Mungatja, like Fiamnok, had been exposed to Christian missionaries but had opted to exclusively maintain his ancient beliefs.

Both of these old men are long gone.  I’ve since met their children, grandchildren and even their great grandchildren.  They now seem to have more in common with me than their grandfathers.  I wonder whether their spirits now leave their bodies when they sleep to travel and soar into that other great ancestral domain.

Masculinisation or dehumanisation: the Sambia tribe

  

IN TODAY’S SOCIETY, we have to be careful about how we view and portray cultural practices as, due to our own ignorance and conditioning as inhabitants of the West, which are heavy influenced by Eurocentric theories, we are prone to condemn things that are unfamiliar to us or might deem them to be “barbaric.”

As we have seen with the practice of female genital circumcision, there continues to be discord between what many of us might consider inhumane practices and what might be viewed as by some as “sacred cultural practices.”

The difficulty comes in when we as individuals have to assess and judge for ourselves what practices should be protected and respected for their cultural significance and which practices should be deemed inhumane regardless of their cultural importance.

Such is the case of the practice of masculinisation as it is conducted by the Sambia tribe in Papua New Guinea. This ritual, which is a symbol of a young boy’s rite of passage to manhood, starts when a boy is between the ages of 6 to 10 and comprises six stages.

Imperative to the processes and teaching of the initial ceremony is the notion that women can be dangerous to men.  To become a man, and in essence a “warrior,” these young men are taught how to detach themselves from their mothers and the women around them as a means of showing that they can live without them and prove their masculinity.

You can read this article in full, and view the accompanying videos, here

Losing our pigs and our ancestors: after Rappaport

BY VIJAY KOLINJIVADI

IN 1968, DISTINGUISHED anthropologist Roy Rappaport wrote a seminal publication of human ecology: Pigs for the Ancestors: Rituals in the Ecology of a New Guinea People which integrated cultural ritual with the necessity of maintaining pre-existing relationships with the environment.

Documenting the behaviour activities of the Tsembaga Maring tribe in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, Rappaport recognized how various activities of the tribe’s intrinsic culture was a direct product of that peoples’ relation with their natural environment.

The ritual slaughter of pigs, which are tantamount to the pinnacle of wealth and prosperity for many Highlands peoples, was no mere cultural artifact, but done to pay homage to the limits and requirements of population and ecological limitations.

Herds of pigs would be reared and fattened until their resource requirements extended beyond carrying capacity and would ultimately lead to land degradation. Upon which the pigs would be slaughtered in a great mumu feast and shared generously amongst members of adjoining family clans.

The competition itself between human and pig, much like competition for niche space within an ecosystem, was sufficient enough for the human masters to keep numbers in check and keep energy exchanges constant.

As Rappaport argued, culture and ritual could also be disruptive to ecological systems when it served its own ends (economic or political institutions) rather than those of the society and the ecological limitations from which it was derived from.

More than forty years later, I paid a visit to one such tribe that has similarly co-existed and valued pigs in much the same way.

In a community that has seen little outside influence prior to the last two decades, the cultural and environmental impacts are the harbingers of a socio-economic malaise with land stripped of its productive value and indigenous communities left at the whim of a money-based economy with no way to understand, let alone benefit from it.

A suitable metaphor might be ‘pulling out the rug from under them’. They can neither go back to adhering to their cultural traditions, nor can they proceed to adopt the new economy and expect to compete in it with the sapped resources left.

Meanwhile, some of the world’s most biodiverse and least-studied forests risk great loss at the helm of this unfortunate cultural war.

Read the complete article here

Source: Mongabay.com, 27 October

Safeguarding the heritage: guardians of the river

  

IN 2005 A report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, entitled Beyond Belief, reached a critical conclusion.

“Sacred sites,” it said, “are the oldest method of habitat protection on the planet.”

Yet these biological and cultural treasures were then and are still under assault — as are the people who have been safeguarding them for millennia.

Hence the Sacred Land Film Project is producing a four-part film series, Losing Sacred Ground, which exposes environmental assaults on indigenous sacred landscapes and promotes strategies to protect the integrity of these endangered places.

Along the banks of the Ramu River in Papua New Guinea, local villagers revived an ancient and sacred canoe ceremony for the film crew.

The short film at the top of this article is a preview of the Sacred Land Film Project series.

Source: Indigenous People’s Issues and Resources

Concerns English could displace tok ples

RADIO AUSTRALIA

TEACHING Papua New Guinea children in English could affect the survival of local languages, and even impact on the use of Tok Pisin according to an expert on languages, Professor Stephen May of Auckland University

The PNG government says it intends to make education free up until year ten, and the language of instruction will be English. Professor May says that decision has severe implications for other languages in the country, but it is understandable given the global importance of English. He was interviewed by Radio Australia’s Bruce Hill….

MAY: I don't think anyone's wrong to promote English in this day and age. I mean English is the current world language and it's increasingly lingua-franca for communication in terms of business and the technology as well as the popular media. So English is everywhere and I think that's one of the reasons why a whole range of governments are trying to address the role in English in relation to education.

I think the problem with making English the language of instruction in a country like Papua New Guinea, it raises a prior question which is how many people actually speak English as a first language, how many of the teachers speak English as a first language or well enough to teach it as a language of instruction, because actually that's counterproductive in the long run if you are replacing a language which everyone knows, students and teachers, with a language that may be aspirational, but if you don't know it well enough then the educational aims are also subverted.

So my concern would be to what degree is English widely enough spoken currently and what expertise the teachers have in English in Papua New Guinea in order to implement this effectively.

HILL: Does this decision to teach in English have any implications for the survival of the vernacular languages in Papua New Guinea, which I think is home to about I think 12 per cent of the world's languages. It's massively linguistically diverse.

MAY: Yes, I mean Papua New Guinea is often but is an example of a country with a huge number of languages. What we know more generally is that although language shift and loss, shifting from one language to another has always occurred really right from the start of things, we do know that in the last three centuries, and particularly in this century, there are more languages lost at a far greater rate, a far more exponential rate than in any other time in history.

And a lot of that has to do with the rise in English as a world language and as colonisation of key language domains that I mentioned earlier, such as education, technology, public culture and so on. So there are huge implications I think for the effect of English on vernacular languages and this is true in Papua New Guinea's case as well.

Lost in the non-linearity of PNG time

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

I’VE BEEN giving the Capitalists a hard time recently and perhaps rightfully so. And yes, around the world Capitalism seems to be having a hard time that’s unless you are a banker receiving government bailouts. These are indeed tough times.

The Western concept of time is that it is linear. The West borrowed this concept from its Judeo-Christian roots.

But most societies elsewhere around the world have always had a circular view of time. Thus the Mayan prophecy that the cycle of time ends in 2102 has been fuelling speculation amongst those with a linear view of time that the world will end.

If you have a circular view of time – every ending is a new beginning. Then one cannot waste time or have limited time because time is always available. Every ending also creates new time. But of course these aren’t the views of the modern Western-centric world.

Because of its concept of time as being linear, the Western world does not have patience for Papua New Guinea Time. PNG time is as Papua New Guinean as tribal fights and betel nut. PNG Time can described as regularly regular ‘lateness’ and ‘delays’ or ‘cancellations.’

A friend of mine recently described typical examples of the application of PNG Time. Scot described a typical village meeting where people (mostly men) are given the opportunity to express their opinion. The meeting would start later than initially intended too.

Men would debate and discuss the same point, repeating the same point, and describe the same matter until everyone was satisfied that the single point had been analysed thoroughly before they move to the next item on the agenda.

Some impatient people call this “beating around the bush” but it’s the Melanesian Way, based on the idea that time is not linear.

Of course, foreigners don’t have patience for PNG Time and understandably so. It is one of the most frustrating experiences for many. Time is money, as the Westerners say.

 

Spiritual breakdown: What happens on Fridays

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

This week, like other weeks before and the weeks to come; like months before and months to come; like years before and years to come; some kids get drunk on Friday.

Many will have to starve themselves by saving their lunch money in order to ‘koins koins na baim bia” [contribute to buy alcohol].

A couple of years back the Squatters Band of Morata squatter settlement sang Take Me to Paradise and it became a hit.

It didn’t make sense to me at the time - why a song with what I thought were meaningless lyrics seemed to strike a chord with the mere mortals.

I was at medical school and socially illiterate. Of course, being a medical student, I thought I knew the difference between what was cultured and what was plainly mediocre.

It wasn’t until I was out of medical school and selling betel nut on the street that I became socially literate.

And the punch line of that song, ‘Wik i kam pinis em wiken nau / Taim bilong kisim wara wantaim ol poroman’ [It’s the beginning of the weekend / So get drunk with your friends] says a lot about what happens on Friday.

Just in case you imagine this is just an urban phenomenon, think again.

Last month, as I travelled on Friday along the North Coast Road in Bogia District, I saw adolescent males; totally drunk and carrying generators, extension cords, speakers and light bulbs to set up somewhere in the coconut plantations. It was an eye-opener for me.

Indeed the mantra that is faithfully recited each weekend is ‘kisim wara, kisim laif na pati’ [get drunk, get sexed, get partying].

For many, em normal ya – it’s become routine.

I have had discussions with friends here in Madang and the obvious question was “Why?” It isn’t an easy question to answer but here’s a summary of the suggestions put forward.

One of the interesting connections my friend Gary made was that there may be a link between what is happening with the Australian Aboriginal people and what’s happening here.

With that in mind, I had an interesting discussion on religion with another friend. Barry said it was not wise to take away someone’s faith in Christianity without replacing it with something good or else the person would resort to alcohol.

Boom! It hit me! What experiences do Aborigines and Papua New Guineans share? Colonisation!

Colonisation wasn’t just a secular process but a religious one as well. Many churches destroyed cultural practices that were deemed unchristian; perhaps justifiably so in some cases, but not all. So animism was replaced by Christianity/Capitalism.

Christianity and Capitalism are two sides of the same coin. You worship God every Sabbath or worship Alcohol every Friday or both.

Spirituality is about relationships from self through the world to the Universal Being. Those who are spiritually void find comfort in alcohol, religiously observing Friday or Saturday as the day of worshipping alcohol. Many have left the Christian churches and have no traditional religion to fall back on, thus they fill the void with alcohol.

Instead of giving an offering to the Christian God, they sacrifice their lunch money to the gods who own the alcohol factories.

Yes, this is the modern nation of Papua New Guinea – a country that is spiritually void.

First we lost our gods to the Christian God, now we’re losing our World [our land and the resources/environment] to Capitalists, and in doing so we are losing our lives to alcohol.

Remember, spirituality is about the relationships between – self (individual person), world (land and environment) and the universal being (God or gods or powers).

The Aborigines of Australia have lost their land, their traditional religions and are now losing themselves to alcohol to fill that spiritual void. That is exactly what happens on Friday in PNG.

Martyn Namorong last week won the 2011 Crocodile Prize for Essays.  His blog, The Namorong Report, is at http://medicmangi.blogspot.com

Nepotism in the PNG nation – it’s just in the blood

BY TANYA ZERIGA-ALONE

NEPOTISM IS CULTURAL.  It is in the blood.

Papua New Guinea is a nation of a thousand tribes and, not too long ago, tribal warfare was the order of the day.

When I was growing up, my mother instructed me not to trust anyone who spoke a different language to hers.

To her dismay, I married outside her circle of trust.

This fear of outsiders has been carried into this century and into this modern system.

Christianity has broken down some of that fear.  Inter-tribal marriage has also helped.

But even so, I prefer my own wantoks over my husband's, maybe because I am just one generation removed from my mother's generation.

Maybe my children and grandchildren (who will be twice and thrice removed from my mother's generation) will be more open-minded because they will have grown up in Port Moresby away from the pressures of either the Morobe or the Enga cultures.

Life in Simbu: Does success spoil the kids?

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

I AM A PROUD Simbu; and when I say this, it doesn’t mean I want Simbu to break away from PNG like some desperate New Guinea Islands and Papuan think tanks want their regions to break away.

However, I want to raise the sad thought that the trend of relativism has taken its toll in Simbu - and probably everywhere else.

Those sons and daughters of the Simbu pioneers who went to live in urban areas have not matched the traditions of the sons and daughters of rural subsistence farmers explored the free world of the Simbu and were groomed in the men’s huts and in the company of Simbu women.

Rural farmers brought up their children through strict discipline about how to approach life in all its aspects, and fortunately they excelled with the aid of mission schools.

The sons and daughters of Sir Joseph Nombri, Sir Ignatius Kilage, Sir Imbakey Okuk and the others lost touch with the reality of the Simbu way simply because they were raised in urban areas outside the Simbu Province.

When these pioneers passed on, their kids wanted to ride on their parents legacy but the rural Simbu communities rejected them because the kids could not adapt to the Simbu way of life.

Their own tribesmen thought they were pseudo whites since they could not emulate a Simbu way of life or emanate a Simbu attribute, including speaking fluent Simbu language.

Intellectuals in Simbu have to decide whether to send their sons and daughter’s to prestigious schools down south and in Port Moresby or to enroll them in schools in the Simbu Province.

Simbu has not changed so much. It is a trade off between liberal democracy and a typical Simbu way of life.

For instance, Peter O‘Neill, although he is of mixed parentage, has an upbringing in Pangia in the Southern Highlands. That’s why he can speak their language and is now such a successful leader.

Food for thought.

Simbu life: The curse of the masalai

BY ROSE KRANZ

MY GRANDPARENTS came from the Nolkummabuno tribe near Goglme and lived in a village called Kigletnigle.

Grandmum told me there were certain parts of the valley and nearby mountains where masalai-people lived and you must not go there or they could do bad things to you.

Being Catholic, she explained this by saying maybe they were evil angels who came to earth after being cast out of heaven.  From her description they sounded a bit like trolls or goblins.

If you had the misfortune of seeing one, bad things will happen to you.  They can take revenge by hurting a part of you that may have hurt them (e.g., making you blind if you look at them, or poisoning your leg if you tread on one).

They are ugly but small. Not completely evil, but malicious and best to be avoided.

One day when Grandma was young, she was out looking for a plant called Mingai which is used for stakes in the garden.  It grows in clumps surrounded by a circle of grass. 

She accidentally wandered into a spirit-place, but saw some great Mingai stalks, so cut them down and took them home and used them as intended in the garden.

The next day her right arm swelled up and was very painful.  Her family took her to the nearest clinic and the medical orderly (a local man) could find nothing physically wrong with her. 

But he asked what she had been doing and she explained about cutting the Mingai.  He advised her to go home and consult with the village elders, as she may have offended the masalai of that place where she cut the plants.

She did so, but the next day her arm was worse, so the village elder decided to try and placate the spirit people.  They made a mumu and prepared an offering of pig's heart, yams, taro and money, placed this on a banana leaf and went to the edge of the place where she cut the plants.

The village 'wise man' placed the offering on the ground and proceeded to cut her right arm with a special sharp leaf while pleading with the spirit-people to remove their curse as Grandma had not meant any harm to them.

He said they had informed him that she had unknowingly cut down part of their house, but as she was just a girl they would remove the curse.

It apparently worked, because when she woke up the next day her arm was better.

She never trespassed on masalai places again.

Trends in cousin marriage in the Buin area

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

INCEST IS CONSIDERED immoral in today’s laws and religions throughout the world, but in the southern tip of Bougainville, a patrilineal society in Buin has practised incest since time immemorial.

In Melanesian societies, land is the source of life; it is the means of survival for the family, clan and tribe. Maintaining landrights was the paramount duty of marriage arrangements in Buin as in all matrilineal societies of Bougainville.

In the Buin district, cousin relationships are part of cultural survival. Although other cultures reject the practice, it is still right to the Buins (and in some other few areas of the world, notably in Pakistan and South Korea).

Buin society is patrilineal, that is, children of a marriage are members of the father’s clan. They receive land through their father’s family not their mother’s and this is justified by the high bride price paid for a woman compared to other societies in Bougainville.

The reasons for such marriage arrangements have been to maintain purity of the descent line, to provide an intimate knowledge of spouses, to ensure that the property from the father’s line will not pass into the hands of outsiders, and to make sure the family legacy is kept intact in the family’s name.

Incest unfortunately results in a high probability of congenital birth defects, and these can be witnessed in many villages in the Buin area.

But in today’s Buin society, new trends have surfaced. Most youths see these arrangements as wrong and will not marry their cousins.  That said, however, they tend to use their cousins as sex objects.

As engaging in sex with one’s cousin is culturally permitted, there are no repercussions, and some young people take advantage of this situation.

The females are seen as free sex objects by their male counterparts within the extended family circle. The males, since they are immune from trouble, use their cousins in a promiscuous way and, later, embark on marriage n a distant place.

Matrilineal women more powerful than men

BY JEFFREY MANE FEBI

BASICALLY THE REASON for the move to reserve 22 seats in parliament for women is because, since independence, women have very little and at times no representation in parliament.

I totally support this move not because women are women but because in PNG they have been marginalised and prejudiced long enough.

It is easy to understand why this has been the case. Many of our traditional customs do not recognise women as people who could potentially speak and act on behalf of a community.

Further, despite the gains in technology and knowledge, the bulk of PNG’s population are ignorant multitudes - illiterates living in rural areas and urban settlements who are not really aware of current trends.

Certain societies in PNG, however, are matrilineal in nature. Wikipedia defines matrilineality as a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline, or mother's, lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles.

Notice the words, ‘which can involve inheritance of property and/or titles’.  This interests me a great deal. This line means women in matrilineal societies are more powerful than men.

My ignorance of the inner workings of matrilineal societies’ leadership structure may lead me to err, but traditionally women in matrilineal societies are the bosses of the land and anything that grows, flows or sits on it.

They make decisions pertaining to land issues and men usually stand by and watch unless they are called on to participate. In essence, women are leaders in matrilineal societies.

Men in patrilineal societies are voted into parliament because of the age old practice of recognising men only as leaders. Similarly, women in matrilineal societies should have been voted into parliament. The question is why has this not happened?

I believe matrilineal societies in PNG can lead the way by voting more women into parliament and thereby exposing to patrilineal societies the trend the modern world has taken.

Don’t get me wrong; an educated few in patrilineal societies are doing their bit to educate the vast ignorant populace, but this will take time.

If we’re serious about recognising women as leaders, reserving 22 seats in parliament is not a noble way to start; voting women into parliament is. Since matrilineal societies recognise women as leaders, it wouldn’t hurt to start with them.

Meanwhile, the Somare government was so dazzled by its own size and power that this important issue was not seriously considered and fast-tracked.

Let us hope the new prime minister will ensure this important legislation gets passed before 2012.

Kiri Vavine’s maiden trip to the highlands

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

 
IT IS TRUE the highlanders flood Port Moresby with ease as and when they want. 

When you travel to the highlands provinces you hardly see a filthy Papuan wondering around and yelling abuse or being a nuisance with rapid betel nut sputum. You never see one with a bush knife tucked under his belt.

Some highlanders with bad attitudes have prompted the Papuans to hate the highlanders in Port Moresby.

Well, Kiri Vavine of the beautiful Aroma coast formed a different opinion of hatred between ethnic groups when she made her maiden journey to the heart of the highlands - Simbu.

Last festive season she decided to accompany a Simbu woman, Kokil Gupku, to explore the heart of the highlands.  Before making the decision, Vavine contemplated the risks involved.

Vavine’s mother told her not to look a highlander in the eye let alone going up to the highlands. However, Vavine wanted to prove that fear has no place in the body but is only in the mind. So she did what most Central people fear: she decided to make her maiden voyage to the Simbu Province.

So on 18 December 2010, Kokil Gupku of Neragaima and Kiri Vavine the Aroma girl travelled to the airport to board an Airlines PNG aircraft. In the departure lounge Vavine saw the mad rush of the highlanders and, not seeing one of her own kind, felt the impulse to return to Aroma.

But she resisted the temptation and bravely boarded the plane. An hour later it descended to land at Nadzab airport. From the plane Vavine could see the tail of the Okuk Highway that coiled its way to the highlands.

At dawn the women jumped aboard a 25-seater PMV bus which roared off bound for the highlands.

It took four hours to arrive at Goroka. The Apo men and women wore infinite smiles. Some nodded upon seeing her, and smiled, which lifted her confidence.

They reached at the summit of Daulo Pass at 3 pm and Vavine shivered. She pulled her overcoat from her bag and immersed herself in it. She chewed a betel nut to generate some body heat.

At 5:25 pm Gupku and Vavine arrived safely at Kundiawa, Vavine happy to have travelled the Okuk highway unscathed.

The women jumped in a PMV truck at dawn and travelled to Neragaima on the border of Kerowagi, Gumini and Kundiawa -Gembogl. 

Gupku’s relatives came in numbers to welcome Vavine and shower her with food. People of all ages in the village treated her as if she was Queen Cleopatra.

She saw remarkable landscapes, rivers and waterfalls. She met friendly people and ate delicious food.

She climbed to the top of Pui Yawi and Guramara to gaze the Erula Nauro country. She admired the Goiye Waiye, Kuk Numbun and Tokma landscapes in the north. Looking east she gazed upon the Porol Scarp, Kingstar and Elimbari landscapes which looked like Egyptian pyramids.

She bathed in the fast flowing Kola Kawa, Kui Molma, Urgiai and Kolai rivers. She walked beyond Bolum and Imil to as far as the Kiure Yauro forests and Waure Tepe.

“Kokil Gupku, I have a question?” asked Vavine whilst sucking on some delicious maritas juice towards the end of her four week stay.

“Speak your mind,” said Gupku.

“You have the most delicious food, beautiful plants and animals, vast stretches of uncultivated fertile land, cool fresh water to drink, rivers and waterfalls to bathe in and friendly people to chat with.  So why do some migrate to Port Moresby and try to make ends meet in the scourging sun?”

Before Gupku could answer Vavine added, “I mean people are better off here than those frustrated migrants in NCD.”

Gupku replied, “Should the government improve the rural infrastructure, such migration will be minimal. The lack of basic services here drive us to the bright lights.”

“All these times I heard bias comments from my wantoks about the highlanders but my experience now said otherwise,” said Vavine.  “I came to a paradise that has never been given the elevation it deserves. I have no regrets missing out on the Christmas at Aroma because I have a thrilling experience in the highlands.

“Thanks Gupku for the camaraderie.  I am sure the New Guinea Islands and Momase are beautiful too. I will travel there in my next holiday. Though we are diverse we can work on the dominant ideas that existed among us and thread out a path for prosperity.”

PNG languages vanish without a whisper

WHO WILL SPEAK Iniai in 2050? Or Faiwol? Moskona? Wahgi? Probably no-one, as the languages of Papua New Guinea and neighbouring Papua — the world’s greatest linguistic reservoir — are disappearing in a tide of indifference.

Yoseph Wally, an anthropologist at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura keeps his ears open when he visits villages to hear what language the locals are speaking.

“It’s Indonesian more and more. Only the oldest people still speak in the local dialect,” he said.

In some villages he visits, not a single person can understand a word of the traditional language.

“Certain languages disappeared very quickly, like Muris, which was spoken in an area near here until about 15 years ago,” he said.

The island of New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages — around 800 in PNG and 200 in Indonesian Papua — but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers, often centred around a village or cluster of hamlets.

Some 80% of the people live in rural areas and many tribes, especially in the isolated mountains, have little contact with one another, let alone with the outside world.

The most widely-spoken language is Enga, with around 200,000 speakers in the PNG highlands, followed by Melpa and Huli.

“Every time someone dies, a little part of the language dies too because only the oldest people still use it,” said Nico, curator of Cendrawasih University’s museum.

In PNG, under the influence of Australia, English has spread, though it has found it hard to penetrate some tribes, particularly those in the highlands.

The authorities are sometimes accused of inaction or even favouring the official language to better integrate the population, particularly in Indonesian Papua.

But according to Hari Untoro Dradjat, an adviser to the Indonesian ministry of culture, no matter what measures are taken to promote traditional languages in schools, “it is almost impossible to preserve a language if it is no longer spoken in everyday life”.

Despite his pessimism about the future, Wally the anthropologist believes art and culture can stop Papuan languages being forgotten.

People love to sing and celebrate and they must do these things in their traditional languages, Wally says — this way young people “will want to discover the language to understand the meaning of the songs”.

More than 200 languages have become extinct around the world over the last three generations and 2,500 others are under threat, according to a UNESCO list of endangered languages, out of a total of 6,000.

Source: Dawn, Karachi (AFP)

Does PNG really have an attitude problem?

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

I ASKED SOME of my friends on a chat site to highlight some issues that were of concern to them about Papua New Guinea.

Those who responded mentioned issues such as lack of good governance, access to education, poor health indicators and an attitude problem. Many viewed a change in people’s attitudes as a precondition for real change elsewhere.

What do people mean when they refer to the attitude problem? For Governor Powes Parkop of the nation’s capital, it centres on littering and respect for public property. The Police think it’s to do with crime and public nuisance. Teachers say juvenile delinquency and students think it’s to do with schools being mismanaged or teachers not attending class.

Most people think it’s the urban drifters who need to be prevented from leaving their villages by the Vagrancy Act. The urban drifters and anyone who isn’t a politician thinks it’s the corrupt, pot bellied big shots who wear cowboy hats and drive in Toyota Landcruisers, as Jeffrey Febi once stated.

It seems everyone has an attitude problem, including me - and that’s according to the woman who gave birth to me.

In describing the concept of the State, someone wrote that because the State belongs to everyone, it belongs to no-one. In applying this to the so called attitude problem, one can say that because everyone has an attitude problem, no-one has and attitude problem.  Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?  Yet it makes sense.  Because if everyone wears pink, no-one is out of order.

What if Governor Parkop didn’t blame the general public for the mess and reflected on how inefficient the garbage collection mechanism was thus creating the eyesore.  What if the teachers saw that they had enrolled more students than they could manage?  What if the students reflected on the high demand on school resources that led to a lack of capacity?

What if the urban dwellers reflected on the push factors that forced people to move to the city, because decisions made by powerful city elite did not serve the interests of the rural majority?

I always thought street vendors were a public nuisance until I became one.  Interestingly, my customers would think every other street vendor except me should be sent packing.  I never knew how kind Goilala people could be until I met my buai mums – the women from whom I buy betelnut to resell.

The attitude problem is a façade. It is used a lot by influential people to distort the truth. Unfortunately, many of us have joined the bandwagon and are pointing the fingers at each other.  It has become a term that is now synonymous with the fringe dwellers of the city – the poorly educated urban poor.

Because these people are of lower socio economic and educational background, they are unable to articulate their arguments the way their critics do.  They do not put out media statements or appear on television to defend their dignity.  Thus the one-sided prejudiced attacks are now seen by many uncritical minds as the gospel truth.

Every time there is a failure on the part of Police they are able to find a convenient excuse and blame the ‘publics’ attitude problem.  Politicians who are poorly managing the affairs of the State cry foul over the public’s pasin (attitude). senisim pasin (change of attitude) seems to be a favorite mantra, even amongst so called advocates of change.

So does PNG have an attitude problem?  Yes it does, but it isn’t what is being communicated in the mainstream media.  The attitude problem is one of a failure to build a modern multicultural society and a sense of communal existence.

There are no modern communities in all towns and cities. What we have are enclaves of tribal or neo-tribal groupings. There is little person-to-person interaction outside of one’s personally defined social zone. There is a failure to coexist in a modern society and so by default, people live as if they are still in their traditional tribal territories.

The task that no one is up to is social engineering- building communities and fusion points.  Sport has an important role in building new fusion communities.  Sadly, popular sports such as rugby league are perpetuating the status quo by having tribalistic province based clubs.

Schools also are places to develop new mindsets; however educators perpetuate the cultural baggage. Instead of deliberately encouraging cross-cultural interaction, students are tagged and boxed into traditional cultural groupings during so called cultural shows.

Imagine an Asaro mud men dance being performed by Sepik students. The Sepik students learn to appreciate the art, culture and mythology of the Asaro people and begin to empathise and identify common ground with their peers.

No one is building communities and defining a new modern society. We all are stuck in our social enclaves and hurling abuse at those outside. So the people you think have an attitude problem, also believe that you have an attitude problem.

Ladava’s hidden WW2 slipway treasure

BY JEFFREY FEBI

ON 25 AUGUST 1942, the Japanese first attacked the Allied forces in Milne Bay.

In preparation for the anticipated attack from an advancing Japanese army, the Allies set up infrastructure in and around Alotau, including airstrips, roads and slipways.  Relics of these now litter the coastline, jungles and waters of the bay of which Alotau is part.

In my time at Alotau, I travelled to a village called Ladava, 40 minutes drive west of the town. When I arrived, students from the local Catholic Mission primary school were emerging from their classrooms for lunch break.

I looked towards the sea and noticed beach, sea and sky were eerily gloomy and dark.  It was as if the low hanging rain clouds had conspired with the beach and the sea to hide something from me. Even the coastline on the other side of the bay was almost totally hidden.

But this did not dampen my enthusiasm to see what I’d come for.  I’d heard about it and had decided to take this trip to see it for myself.

A few minutes walk from the school to a point on the shore, the shrubs, soil and sea reveal a secret - a slipway; constructed by the Americans. This abandoned facility, now at the mercy of harassing waves and tree roots, is about 80 metres long.

What fascinated me about this wreck is that the locals believe former US President John F Kennedy’s torpedo boat made its last stop here for servicing and refuelling before journeying on to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Alotau was a major naval base during the war so it is quite possible the boat might have made a stopover.

The slipway wreck is the object of affection for a crocodile, which comes ashore frequently to hunt for nearby dogs.  According to local belief, the crocodile is the spirit of a witch looking for her prized kill.

This slipway is part of the infrastructure that played an important role in the Battle of Milne Bay, where for the first time Allied troops defeated Japanese land forces, resulting in a withdrawal and complete abandonment of their strategic objective.

This defeat prompted Field Marshal Sir William Slim, British Commander in Burma to encourage and motivate his troops with: “If the Australians have done it, so can we.”

Many other fascinating and forgotten relics on the periphery of Alotau still remain hidden.  Time will reveal these treasures.

Alotau could easily become a PNG tourist hub with its attractive landscape and people, its real assurance of peace and tranquility, and the fact it served as a strategic allied base that was used to defeat the advancing Japanese land forces.

Tourists, who plan to travel to Alotau in the near future, should consider visiting Ladava village before travelling to other exotic islands like the Trobriands.

Pasin & luksave: social capital for change

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

RECENTLY I HAD LUNCH with Matt Morris from the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University.  Matt was surprised that I had not met with other bloggers and commentators in Papua New Guinea.

On the two occasions I attended the Transparency International annual general meeting, I noticed how tense and out of place everyone seemed to be. While I understand the serious nature of the occasion, there was an atmosphere of plasticity unlike other meetings I’ve been to.

Jamie Maxton Graham lamented at a recent media conference that the Opposition seemed out on its own in talking about the Big Issues. He questioned why the public was not mobilising to do anything.

Matt Morris has worked in PNG and seems to know more about Papua New Guineans than some citizens and residents.  Matt’s impressed that, for many Papua New Guineans, a little good deed goes a long way in building relationships. I only figured this out recently, having left medical school.

The key drivers of relationship building in PNG are pasin and luksave, Melanesian Pidgin words that can be loosely translated as character and acknowledgment of others.

Ones pasin earns one respect and following. This may be either positive or negative. Luksave on the other end earns social capital and is achieved by familiarity, greeting people, sharing a smoke or a betelnut….

For example, I send virtual gifts to my PNG friends on a social networking site and I have received a parcel of betelnut sent from afar plus heaps of free phone credits. Papua New Guineans are very generous people and appreciate the little of luksave.

Many advocates of change in PNG preach to the converted. They congregate with those from similar socio-economic or educational backgrounds. When they attempt to reach out, it is usually by hurling the message across a wide gulf instead of meeting the audience.

The receiver does not empathise with the sender and, while the message may be understood, it is ignored. The audience is not familiar with their pasin and well there hasn’t been any luksave.

Thus at one of Transparency International’s AGMs, current chairman Lawrence Stephens mentioned how people think its TIPNG’s business to deal with corruption.  He told the story of two drunks arguing and one telling the other; bai mi kotim yu long TIPNG [I’ll report you to TIPNG].

I can understand the security concerns that may limit expats from meeting ordinary PNGeans but I cannot see why Melanesians can’t meet other Melanesians.

It’s common sense; people will respond to your message if it’s relevant and if you are relevant to them. Otherwise, you and your message become totally irrelevant to them even if the issue is of national interest. Go and meet more people!

Unusual PNG fishing techniques

BY PETER KRANZ

MOST PEOPLE have heard of the shark callers of New Ireland, who bang coconut shells in the water to attract sharks which then obligingly allow themselves to caught.

But there are other unusual and traditional fishing practices in Papua New Guinea (and no, I don't mean hurling a World War II grenade into a lagoon.)

Some of the older kastom PNG methods was covered by an episode of Extreme Fishing which aired on the Discovery Channel a couple of days ago.

Robson Green learns from PNG hunters how to master the most unusual fishing techniques.  This is a disturbing but fascinating program about catching some of the biggest fish in the most difficult places in the most unusual ways, and is a must-watch for fishing tragics.

I confess a personal interest.  When in Buka a few years back I walked along the edge of the Buka channel beyond the market and came across a strange rock enclosure - rather like those tidal rock swimming pools you see on Australian coasts.

It had a narrow gateway that allowed the sea to come in. When I was there it was low tide, so the enclosure was empty, but it appeared to have a wooden gate at the entrance which could be lowered.  My assumption was that it was a fish trap.

I surmised that the gate was lifted as the tide came in, then lowered as it ebbed thus catching fish in the enclosure. I may be chewing the wrong buai here (as I was only there for a few days), but it seemed to me to be a pretty amazing piece of traditional fish catching technology.

Anyone know more?

What’s up old mate: kinship's familiar bond

BY PHIL FITZPATRICK

FOR SOME PEOPLE one of the disadvantages of growing old is the development of intolerance for the vicissitudes of the weather.

A few years ago my wife and I, tired of the blistering summer heat and bone-numbing winters in South Australia and craving for balmy sunshine, began exploring the options for a possible move to Queensland.

Even though thousands had done it before us, exploration was the operative word.  We had heard alarming things about the denizens of this distant place and had visions of a land populated by rampant katters and joyces.*

When we finally made the move we were pleasantly surprised.  Not only did the Queenslanders have two legs and arms enabling them to walk upright just like us but their habits and predilections were comfortingly familiar.

They are a bit like the Irish with an amusing touch of the feral.  Today we feel quite at home in our little wooden house a short walk away from the sea and have even put Queensland licence plates on our car. Notwithstanding the strange things they do with footballs, the banana benders are clearly the salt of the earth.

This feeling of being quite at home is curious.  The same thing happens when I am in Papua New Guinea.  I could be sitting on a helipad chopped out of the surrounding rainforest surrounded by a bunch of bearded and sweating Highlanders or I could be taking tea in the mezzanine restaurant in the Crown Plaza in Port Moresby.  The feeling is the same.

It is not the sort of feeling I get when I am sitting in a town square somewhere in Europe sipping coffee or, for that matter, when I am eating the world’s best peppered squid on the waterfront at Trader Jacks in downtown Avarua on Rarotonga, where some of the world’s friendliest people live.

I’ve been in a few hair-raising incidents in PNG over the years, ranging from being ambushed and shot at to tricky situations in helicopters and boats.  This has not dented my enthusiasm for the place; indeed the camaraderie with my fellow victims has strengthened the bond.  Having bits of Peter Mantilla splattered all over me from a rascal’s shotgun blast has ensured our lifelong friendship.

My personal relationship with PNG, whether dire or mundane, is based on shared experiences and a comfortable familiarity.

At a different level Australia’s relationship with Papua New Guinea once had the same basis – up until independence in 1975 at least.  Like my personal relationship, there was some rough and tumble involved, not the least being the war with the Japanese.

But then, for some strange reason, the two friends walked away with hardly a shrug over their shoulders.  There was no “see you later mate” from Australia, it was quick and irrevocable.  The cat cries from PNG - “rack off then, we don’t need you anymore” - didn’t help either.

It was like a couple of old friends falling out over the most trivial of reasons.  There would be no more climbing over the back fence to play.

Australia withdrew into its self righteous shell and PNG went off to find new friends.  “If you don’t want to play we’ll go have fun with the Fijians and the Chinese, then you’ll be sorry!’

If you were walking down the street one day and you came across an old childhood friend sitting in the gutter with his head in his hands what would you do? 

Would you quickly walk past hoping he didn’t notice you, or would you bend down and put a hand on his shoulder and say, “What’s up old mate?”

If you were inclined to the latter it would be because of those shared experiences from long ago and the sense of familiarity you retained.  If you did the former it would be because you’d become introspective, impersonal and hard-nosed; a realist you might say.

Perhaps this second scenario is what is going on between our great countries now.  Perhaps the warmth of the personal touch has gone cold.

How else can you explain the cold-hearted way that both Australia and PNG are dealing with those poor buggers in the Western Province with tuberculosis?

We live in each other’s back yard, for goodness sake, and we are old mates; why are we behaving like this to each other.

If I can come to terms with Queenslanders, isn’t it time Australia and Papua New Guinea tried coming to terms with each other?

A little bit of real honesty on both sides might help.

* Editor’s note:  Katter = an exotic Queensland hominid that incessantly elocutes from the safety of its broad-brimmed hat;  Joyce = an excitable Queensland species that moves so quickly the observer loses all sense of direction - KJ

Tea at Alice Wedega's

BY RUSSELL SOABA

WHAT IS IT in an autobiography that makes us want to go back and revisit: certain settings, turn of events or simply family set-ups that we find fascinating?

Perhaps it is more of that family scenery than anything else. The Kikis, the Kilages, the Wedegas, the Kidus , the Mama Kumas and so on. Indeed the Papua New Guinea autobiography is quite often family-oriented, but more striking in that it enormously influences the political thought of the times it was written in.

Thus, Kiki’s is closely associated with PNG’s struggle towards political independence, Kilage’s with the first-contact experiences and missionary influences in the central Highlands, Kidu’s with the notion of cross-cultural ventures and sentiments, Wedega’s with the vision of the young learning the art of “listening” to the heart beat of their country and Mama Kuma’s with the necessity of embarking on tireless journeys back to one’s roots.

All these works, simple sounding though they may be, and no matter how much time they spend around family or bese circles, constitute Papua New Guinea’s very search for self-discovery.

“Papua New Guinea will never be a country without problems, but it could be known for the way we get over them,” declares Alice Wedega in her autobiography, Listen, My Country.

In fact, the first thing that comes to storyboard’s mind when he tries to “listen” to that work by Dame Alice Wedega is the smell and taste of hot buns and scones, even fresh bread, from a 44 gallon drum oven. In those times gone by, usually around the Korobosea area, it was nice to drop by at Alice’s for tea and hot buns for some. Life was never meant to be hard and complex. That would be so because Alice always made things easier in any given situation.

One recent Saturday, storyboard went down to Vabukori for tea at Alice Wedega’s. Well, not quite the same sort of set-up that Alice’s many friends would remember around Korobosea. This tea gathering was special because one of Alice’s descendants had recently graduated in political science at UPNG and it was quite fitting for the bese to hold a feast in her honour.

All the more fascinating was the sort of struggle this young graduand would go through during the course of her last four years of academia. These achievements Alice would certainly feel most proud of as she herself in her autobiography speaks with special care and attention to the need for young Milne Bay as much as Papua New Guinean women to strive for higher goals in their lifetime.

But for Emmar Daure, the descendant and graduand, life was not as easy as many of us can expect or imagine. For her going to school meant waking up before 5 am to prepare catching 3 or 4 different buses just to reach the school grounds which were usually at the other end of the city, including the University of Papua New Guinea. The routine alone of those hours spent on road travel would make many young people give up easily, what with so much pushing and shoving, screaming and shouting for room or space.

But Emmar seemed to have managed that for various reasons, among them her size and the fact that she is Alice’s great grandniece. “You forget, Sir, that we Milne Bays are very small people. We can weave our way around through crowds,” she would explain to storyboard at times, but too modest to add that with a great grand aunt like Wedega at the back of your mind you should not even contemplate giving up.

Added to the woes of transport difficulties (sometimes the buses not turning up at all at Vabukori the students of Emmar’s generation would walk to Badili or Koki to catch buses there) there was the problem of soaring school fees at all levels of school throughout the country. For families who could afford to meet these costs that was fine. But a great majority we must realise simply struggle with these.

So then, when on the day that Emmar’s mother would collect mail from the post office looking suspicious like it contained some good news from UPNG, the family had nothing in the kitchen for dinner. That did not matter. They all wanted Emmar to open the envelope and see what was inside. Sure enough, it was a letter of congratulations on her achievements in completing the BA program; plus a request for her presence at the graduation ceremony of 29 April 2011.

In essence, storyboard wanted to witness the spirit of perseverance in young people once relished by women leaders such as Alice Wedega. He went down to Vabukori to speak in praise of Emmar and be reminded once again that our pioneer greats certainly did not waste their time in writing those autobiographies. What they have achieved we shall continue to achieve.

Emmar’s big uncle and leader of the Keia Sere clan, Willie Moses, acknowledged the young woman’s academic achievement with wonderful words of prayers and blessing. Other guests spoke as well in praise of her at the feast. And Emmar herself, in expressing her gratitude, echoed the words of her Vice-Chancellor and those of Dame Carol Kidu of the necessity there is in young people of her generation and calibre to strive and achieve the best in order that the bese which they represent will feel proud of them. Nothing comes easy; but difficult situations are often overcome through perseverance.

The food at Emmar’s feast, or should we rather say, the tea at Alice Wedega’s, was so profoundly delicious. Storyboard in spite of himself had to ask for a second helping. Shame on him; coupled, of course, with an additional request for a bahu wrapping for him to take home. Food prepared came from both sides of the graduand’s respective families. This is a wonderful family. So quiet yet highly dignified.

In fact, when we think of Alice Wedega and all her influences we are listening with her to the heart beat of our country. And all that starts at family level. Alice herself never married and never had children of her own. But everywhere she went she was surrounded by children eager to learn, eager to obey her stern rules and eager to feast at the end of the day. Among these are today men and women of renown and spread all over Papua New Guinea.

Source: Soaba’s Storyboard - http://soabasstoryboard.blogspot.com

Introducing the Hulas of the Papuan coast

BY MARY FISHBURN & REGINALD RENAGI

HELLO PNG ATTITUDE! My name is Mary Ligo–Fishburn and I come from Hula village in the Rigo sub-district area of the Central Province in Papua. I have now lived in Australia with my family for over fifteen years.

I am proud to hail from a particular race of people called the Hulas. This name is originally derived from our early traditional name of Vula before the coming of the missionaries to the central coast.

The people are mostly Christians, peace-loving, good-natured and of friendly disposition. We are Polynesian in appearance.

Since the early 18th century, our ancestors were converted by Christian explorers-cum-missionaries from the London Missionary Society (LMS) protestant order of England.

The LMS first came to several Hula coastal villages from their South Sea missions based in Samoa, Tonga and Rarotonga.

The early lay-missionaries taught our people the traditional Polynesian skills of basket-making, mat-weaving and carving artefacts from wood and traditional jewellery-making from sea-shells, a unique type of singing (Ute), and certain Polynesian chanting songs.

The LMS church spread similar Christian influence up and down the coastal villages of Papua. After World War II in the 1960s, the last Polynesian missionaries left to return to their South Sea home ending the era of the Polynesian missionaries in Papua with the emergence of locally trained pastors to carry on the church’s work to this day.

Not much is known of the Hulas, or where they originated from when they first came to settle on the south coast of Papua. The Hulas could possibly have inherited their features from some mixed-blood ancestral links to Polynesians, Melanesians and Micronesians.

The Hulas, both men and women, are generally very attractive looking with their long straight or curly hair, light-brown skin and fine facial features.

Many people say they very much resemble similar the Malay seafarers who were some of the early explorers along the Papuan coast.

In future I will share with you a little more about the Hulas, our unique lifestyle, Christian upbringing and friendly culture. I’ll also let you know what I am involved in right now in Australia to help my Hula community back home.

I am very grateful to Keith Jackson and want to thank him for letting me share my story with readers on PNG Attitude. This blog is a great way to improve relations between Australia and PNG. Tanikiu kamuvagi (Hula for thank you very much).

Note: I am also grateful to my former Hohola suburban neighbour and Kila Kila High School friend, Reginald Renagi, in encouraging me to send this short introduction of my people as a feature article for PNG Attitude.

Melanesian magic is not European magic

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

MELANESIANS WERE A Stone Age people. In their primitive stages, everything they encountered needed explanation thus formulating a mythology. From this came fear of the unseen, that men ought to respect and venerate in order to survive.

These spirits were considered the owners and carers of the environment. In my place, Kieta in Central Bougainville, the paro are spirits that mostly own and dwell in caves. These beliefs are embedded in the Kieta society and undebatable.

Any piece of land a particular clan settled in during its migratory days has a spirit dwelling there as a mark. These spirits are venerated by clan or family elders, even in this era of Christianity.

The symbols are close kept secrets; open only to the traditional custodians. Other clans are not allowed to know these things. By spiritual means, therefore, the Melanesian men have power over the world around them.

These beliefs are a complex part of society and cannot be easily comprehended by observation. Spiritual systems were nurtured by the community under the leadership of a practicing elder: people highly regarded within their respective spheres of influence.

The magician was a priest within the community and also a medium of the spiritual world. The community respected him or her and the numerous responsibilities: covering areas of communal health, defence, fortune and so on.

In Melanesian societies, the introduced (western) understanding of ‘magic’ does not fit with our practices. The Macquarie Dictionary says magic is ‘the art of producing effects claimed to be beyond natural human power’.

Another academic definition is more in the Melanesian context because it implies that magic in our society is actually the traditional ways we engage to get desired results for the good of the community. Ways that enable us to perform or realise our talents and abilities.

In Kieta, when a young man builds his very first house, a feast is called. During the feasting, this house - with the owner inside - is sprinkled with warm pig blood and herbs. At the same time, a litany is sung calling on the spirits of the land and the death progenitors to guide the youth.

When the youngster later on erects more houses, because of this magic the community directly benefits by having many houses. In Melanesia, the magician is more subject to community scrutiny.

In these culture there is no vocabulary to cover all the practices the contemporary world calls magic.

The understandings we get from this are that all the Melanesian practices classified as magic are, in fact, rituals with specialised functions covering everything a human being experiences and achieves in a lifetime; under the practical guidance of the traditional culture of a specific society.

In my final analysis, Melanesian ‘magic’ presents the rituals that pay homage to or venerate traditional beliefs for the good of the community, thus the western definition is most unsuitable.

Female initiation rites in the Simbu culture

BY ROSE KRANZ

I WRITE ABOUT an amazing tradition [kastom] still practiced by Simbu communities.

If a girl starts her first menstruation she is consigned to a small hut with a friend - all symbolic. If she has been a good girl she is released early.

Two pots are placed outside the hut - one filled with water, one not. If she has been a good girl, she will be allowed to drink from the full pot. If not she will be offered the empty pot and will be returned to the hut.

The elders will ask her questions about whether she has been a good girl or not. On successful completion of the interrogation, she will jump out the door of the hut over some sugar cane.

Then, in front of a big fire, the elders will further interrogate her. If her answers are good (for example, 'Yes I helped my aunties in the garden. Yes, I gave water to father when he was thirsty'), she will be offered more water and mumu food.

If not - she goes back into the hut and the process is repeated. It can take several months until she learns the right answers.

After this, the relatives make a big feast, tell stories and accept the girl as a young woman. Then everyone celebrates.

By the way, if after the ceremony a young Simbu girl wears a tight necklace of little shells ('beads nungo'), it is a sign that she is a virgin. 

Photo: Rose Kranz