Initiation Rituals, Pig sacrifice, grass skirts and Bride price ceremonies – my ground is shaking

Once per year the Divine Word University is hosting the Cultural Day – this means that groups from 20 provinces perform on that great gathering . Most of them are with students from the Uni, but as well other people in Madang take part in it. Already in the weeks before one could notice that something is going on: everywhere on the greens of the campus you heard drums and singing in the early evening hours. When coming to the big Sports field of the campus around midday it was much different than before: little stands made of bamboo and palm leaves around a big arena demarcated by a fence. And everywhere people in traditional outfits – amazing!

As I had already been impressed by the Bogainville night two weeks ago there is hardly anything that could express my feelings during this afternoon. The different outfits were just great and I felt intimidated by the painted faces around me. I did not even recognize most of the students from my class. They seemed so different, distant, impressive - just not the shy students I know.

These two guys for example are Albert and Christopher from PNGs Oro Province. Normally they are sitting in my class and discuss referencing guidelines with me... tough to imagine, eh?

The outfits they are wearing are very precious and rare. Especially the highlands dresses were brought by the parents of the students the day before the event and are taken back up into the villages the next day. We are talking about a 20-30 hour ride on the PMV oneway for the parents. This illustrates the significance of this event I guess.

The groups were performing certain dances to represent their province, some have only a demonstrational character, others are taken absolutely serious. Especially from the island provinces the dances and rituals are highly important and such gatherings are used to perform the rituals in reality and not as a show act. A very special event was the initiation dance of the adolescent boys from West New Britain province: the change of status to become young men. This change is taking place over several weeks and the dance ritual they performed at the show was part of the ‚rites de passage‘ (German: Übergangsriten) towards the status of manhood. The boys had been fasting for the last two weeks and had older Big Men from their villages being flewn in to teach them the steps o

f the dance and to build their masks. The boys are only allowed to perform this dance once in their life and all of their equipment is highly magic-laden: no woman is allowed to touch any of it. It is believed that she could die from it. The dance was about 40 minutes, very athletic and with clear sexual movements. Their masks gave an impressive image and the singing to a bamboo-drum rhythm was just great. I have no idea if I know some of the dancers.

Anothere ritual performed at the show was the circumcision (German: Beschneidung) of a young boy. It was not shown in full public – the family formed a circle around the boy and the honoured old man when the cuts were done. But it was a real ritual and the father of the boy sacrificed after the circumcision a pig with a long, sharp javelin. It was bound to a long trunk and then killed in front of all the eyes of the crowd. Heavy stuff.eHea

HHH

Other groups performed normal festivity dances, or, like the group from Sepik River, a bride price payment ceremony. But I think the pictures say more than the words. Enjoy this impression from a very distant world. My ground is starting to shake, something is going on with me, difficult to explain. I am feeling a deep fascination for what is going here in this country…