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... in the Duke of York group. Central to Tolai culture is the Tumbuan society, personified by a large tapa mask with circular eyes painted on the front topped by a black and white feather. This sacred Tolai Tumbuan masks arrive for a boy's initiation ceremony Traditional Malangan house display showing their masks, friezes, and sculptures. The man in front wearing a blue lava-lava is the "Rate" or ceremonial leader for this clan culture. A man wearing tapa cloth mask represents an important female spirit who can be called up at certain times by the village Big Men.
This Tumbuan image, whose identity is completely hidden between the mask and a leaf skirt that covers the rest of the wearers body, is a major force of social control. In the old days a Tumbuan had the power of life or death over anyone who broke society's rules. Even today when a Tumbuan appears it is a powerful inducement to make the person it confronts pay a debt or correct improper behavior. Another major role of the Tumbuan is to preside over boys and young men during initiation rituals. Held in a secret place in the bush the initiates learn the practices of the society in which they will spend their lives. On occasion the power of the Tumbuan can be passed on to signify acceptance of contemporary practices.
A dramatic example was the presence of Tumbuan who escorted newly ordained Catholic priests as they prepared to conduct their first mass. After the priests entered the sanctuary area the Tumbuan's jauntily walked off into the bush. In another example of how past and present beliefs can merge, All (ancestor) masks presided over these ceremonies as well as a major memorial ceremony to honor clan members who had died after World War II. Several years ago the more aggressive Tolai drove the Baining people back from the coast to the bush areas of the Gazelle Peninsula. Here, in lush remote valleys, the Baining continue to live and practice many of their traditional customs. Among the most dramatic are the Mens Night Fire dances.
Men rubbed with black soot and wearing only leaves and a tapa mushroom-shaped penis cover, dance around and through a huge bonfire, with fantastic tapa masks of various realistic and abstract shapes. Originally designed to honor the mans world of hunting and the spirits of the bush, this ceremony has now expanded to include celebrations to honor the dead, mark the anniversary of Papua New Guineas independence and the initiation of young boys to manhood. New Ireland and the tiny Table group of islands lie west of New Britain and the Duke of York group. This area is home to one of the most unique cultural practices and specialized art forms in all of Oceania. Malangan rituals and their accompanying arts continue to be essential in marking different stages of life (especially funerary and memorial functions), social status, validating land use transactions, establishing new sub clans, making rain and for celebrations. The work of master carvers is widely acclaimed.
Their complex three-dimensional colorful carvings in sculptural, mask and frieze forms with realistic oper cula snail eyes are present at all of these occasions. Papua New Guinea was described as "an earthly paradise for anthropological research" where indigenous societies are "untouched by Western culture. " (de Bruijn, 1959) Colonialism has often been considered a force that can corrupt indigenous societies. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that early anthropologist who thought of themselves as the first to touch a "virgin" Papuan culture experienced problem about their own roles in the colonial project. These anthropologists simultaneously imagined that they had the power to destroy indigenous cultures and the scientific prowess to preserve them forever. Most 19 th century anthropologists who participated in violent colonial encounters reinforced popular prejudices, depicting Papuans as inherently violent savages. Others, however, wrote critiques, and even conducted letter campaigns, about the savage nature of the "civilizing mission. " When Indonesia invaded West Papua in 1962 it portrayed the Dutch as poor colonists who had not yet conquered Papuan savagery. (Machlin, 2000 [ 1972 ]) Anthropological theory was appropriated by Indonesian nationalists who thought Papuans were at a lower rung on the ladder of human development. 96 % of the population claims to be Christian.
However, most Catholics and many Protestants are highly syncretistic in their beliefs, mixing animistic spiritism with Christianity. Praising God on Sundays while visiting shamans during the week is a common practice. 60 - 70 % of all Papua New Guineans remain in varying degrees of bondage to animism, regardless of what they profess. There is freedom of religion in Papua New Guinea. There are many Christians in government and the whole country is increasingly permeated with Christian values. However, local nationalists and humanist anthropologists are exerting pressures to limit the activities of churches and missions. Over the past 120 years the gospel has spread throughout many regions of Papua New Guinea, first along the coast and then into the highlands.
The ready acceptance of the gospel has resulted in a nominal and superficial Christianity of the majority without a radical transformation of basic values and beliefs. In some areas there is already disillusionment and a turning back to traditional customs. The colonists among whom there were many missionaries introduced their religion, Christianity, to people whose only God was nature itself. The dances in colorful masks, the lava lavas, crocodile teeth all these things were usual and full of sense. When the missionaries spoke of the Lord who would give them crops, they wanted to see those crops today, not after death. They didnt understand that having many wives is bad because polygamy was natural for them.
Two or more wives could do more work and bring more prosperity to a household. The colonists did not understand all this. They wanted to give these people civilization and to do so they had to influence the original customs of Papuans. The missions forbade their ritual dances, polygamy, and their rituals.
Many villages were resistant to the teachings of the missionaries and their young converts. Some imposed heavy fines of sago on those who converted to Christianity, while others hid their ceremonial objects and decorations in the bush. Missionaries were threatened and local Christians were given extra cleaning and clearing duties in the village for failing to participate in dances and ceremonies. Despite this, there were repeated instances of the destruction of decorated canoe prows as well as the public display and burning of primary ritual objects including shields, drums, figures and rattles. Consequently, within years of the missions arrival, the salience and practice of much ceremonial life, particularly which based on dance, had waned.
But they couldnt stop people from practicing what they had practiced for thousands of years. They continued with their wild dances, having many wives, rituals of boys initiation and other things that couldnt be regarded as proper Christian conduct. The priests tried to influence the villagers by force but it didnt work. Even nowadays they can not remove all these traditions and rituals from the lives of the Papuans. The flexibility of Papua New Guinea culture, and their capacity to absorb new elements into their culture, continues to attract the attention of anthropologists. In the 1950 s, Australian anthropologist Peter Lawrence wrote of the now-famous "cargo cults. " Cargo cults were the Papuans' attempt to explain, in their own cultural terms, Western dominance in material wealth and technology.
They attributed to westerners a superior form of cult and magic and tried to appropriate it. Cargo cults were the outbreak of communal ritual innovation in this regard, but the cargo cult as a more enduring feature of Papua New Guineas cultural innovation represented the deep-seated capacity of local traditions to borrow new concepts and infuse their cult life with the power of external knowledge. The cargo cult remains a feature of communal cosmology throughout Papua New Guinea. Nowadays, almost two-thirds of the population is Christian.
Of these, more than 700, 000 are Catholic, more than 500, 000 Lutheran, and the balance are members of other Protestant denominations. Although the major churches are under indigenous leadership, a large number of missionaries remain in the country. The bulk of the estimated 2, 500 Americans resident in Papua New Guinea are missionaries and their families. The non-Christian portion of the indigenous population practices a wide variety of religions that are an integral part of traditional culture, mainly animism (spirit worship) and ancestor cults.
Christianity conflicts with traditional social structure in Papua New Guinea. The traditional structure places willfulness and lawfulness in a dialectical relationship, whereas Christianity has made willfulness bad, so that desire has become problematic. Papua New Guinea social structure requires routine violation of Christian moral codes. Rituals such as spirit discos, group possession dances, have been developed to help deal with conflicting notions of desire. But that is not acceptable in Christian religion. Hence, there is a place for an eternal conflict between Christianity and Papua New Guinea.
In my opinion, the future of Papua New Guinea is rather uncertain. Globalization brought them many churches and these churches have been trying to change the indigenous population and their powerful customs and traditions. Nevertheless, the original culture is still alive and people of Papua New Guinea continue to practice their old rituals and worship nature. This gives hope that this globalization and civilization brought by colonists and missionaries will not wipe completely the original beauty of Papua New Guinea traditional culture.
References de Bruijn, J. V. (1959). Anthropological Research in Netherlands New Guinea Since 1950. Oceania 29, pp 123 - 163. Machlin, M. (2000). The Search for Michael Rockefeller.
Pleasantville, NY: Akadine Press. Papua New Guinea 3, August, 2004 < web >. Papua New Guinea Virtual Library 3, August, 2004 < web >. Papua New Guinea 3, August, 2004 < web >. Papua New Guinea online 3, August, 2004 < web >.
Papua Map Index 3, August, 2004 < web >.
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Research essay sample on Papua New Guinea Indigenous Population
