In traditional society, culture and religion are so integrated. Separating what is pure custom and what is pure religion is as difficult as splitting a hair. But now, the sacred stories are no longer sacred.
By
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
·5 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Singai Suku, Village Head in Tais, Papua New Guinea.
The Tais people have a story that explains the origin of the creation of humans. This was originally a very sacred story, a secret story that could only be told in special ceremonial rituals.
Singai Suku, a village head in Tais, recounted his experience taking part in an initiation ritual when he was 15 years old. The initiation was to show that the boys were mature enough and tough enough to be a legitimate member of the tribe.
“All the young boys were taken by the village elders to the middle of the forest at noon. We had to go through some tests. Archery, blowing bamboo flutes and throwing weapons amid bamboo slats. Only those who passed all the exams could take part in the ceremony," said Singai.
At midnight, the men of the tribe made a fire. The village elders sat around the fire. The shaman led the ceremony, beat drums, danced and chanted mantras, brought a magical nuance. They burned the fur of a wallaby, then took turns smelling its aroma.
After that, the village elders whispered the sacred story to the initiated youth. The ritual took place for the whole week. The story was repeated and continued to be repeated so that the youth could memorize every word and detail of the story.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Children in Tais, Papua New Guinea. Every boy in Tais has to undergo initiation to signify that he has become an adult.
Throughout the ritual, the women continued staying in the village, waiting for the men to return from the forest. They painted their faces with charcoal, colored their entire bodies, and wore tassels of leaves on their waists. When the men came, the women danced to welcome them.
The women together with the village elders then beat the backs of the initiated youths with wooden sticks. The women shouted a lot of advice, such as "You can\'t have sex until we plan your wedding!" Young people could only look at their future, not look back. If they violated, they were killed.
After that they danced and enjoyed big meals for days.
You can\'t have sex until we plan your wedding!
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With its extraordinary cultural diversity, Papua has always been a haven for anthropologists to study the roots of human culture.
Jared Diamond used to conduct research in the interior of Papua, both on the PNG and Indonesian sides. In the book The World Until Yesterday, he described the various social systems of modern society, whose roots could be found in the life of traditional society. That includes national boundaries, legal systems, economic systems, languages, up to religion. Therefore, it is very important for us study the life of traditional society in order to understand the complexities of life in this modern era.
With regard to religion, Diamond believed that all societies originally had a “religion.” The first function of religion for traditional society is to provide explanations for the various mysteries of the natural phenomena around them. In the era of prescience, all these questions were explained with stories. From there various sacred stories, creation myths, as well as beliefs in ancestral spirits, gods, and all other supernatural beings were born.
The next function of religion in traditional society, according to Diamond, is to relieve people\'s anxiety about various problems or dangers that are beyond their control. That is why, humans perform various rituals, in order to "please" the various forces that they believe have the power to govern the nature. These rituals give them peace and a bit of certainty in facing life.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Residents in Tais, Papua New Guinea, grilling food. Eating together is one of the traditional customs in Tais.
This is in line with prominent Polish anthropologist Bronisaw Malinowski\'s research in the 1910s on the Trobiands Islands in New Guinea. He observed that the villagers always performed magic rituals before departing to fish in the dangerous high seas. However, they never hold any rituals when they want to catch fish in the lagoon, where the water is calm and without any danger.
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Rituals are closely related to sacred stories. The initiation ritual in Tais village is the process of inheriting sacred stories. With this ritual, the male members of the tribe will always remember the story in detail, and believe it as absolute truth.
Here I find that sacred stories, rituals and religion also function as markers of identity. The ritual is subsequently transformed into a tradition, which is passed down from generation to generation.
In the ritual at Tais, things that are now referred to as "culture" can also be found, such as the sounds of mantras, songs, dances and traditional clothes.
In traditional society, culture and religion are so integrated. Separating what is pure custom and what is pure religion is as difficult as splitting a hair.
But now, the sacred stories are no longer sacred and the rituals are dead.
