PNG is one of the countries with the highest Christian population in the world. More than 96 percent of the population is Christian and the majority are Protestant.
By
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
·4 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Residents of Tais, Papua New Guinea praying. The majority of the residents of this area are Protestant Christians.
In the memories of Singai Suku, 60, the head of Tais village, the change of faith in his village began in 1969. At that time, an Australian missionary came to this small village in the interior of Western Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Grahame Martin, the missionary, was a thin man and a World War II veteran. Since the 1950s he had traveled to the most remote hinterlands of PNG to preach his religion. All the residents of Tais village at that time trembled when they met him for the first time. Residents thought the white man was the spirit of their ancestors or at least, an ancestral messenger. That belief made them very afraid and at the same time respectful and obedient to him.
However, the white man apparently did not care about their ancestors at all. He even said, “If you still follow the way of life of your ancestors, you will all be cooked in hell”.
He ordered the residents to reveal their sacred stories. The stories of the ancestral heritage were originally only allowed to be disclosed in sacred ceremonies and had to be kept secret. However, on that day, the stories had to be heard for everyone who gathered in the field: men, women and children.
Openness killed the sacredness. After hearing the stories, Martin said: “The stories are bad. Very, very bad. From now on, you have to forget about the ancestral stories.”
After that, Martin asked everyone in the village to take out all the amulets and magic tools they had. All the secret goods and sacred items had to be dried in the field for display to all. In Singai\'s memory, at that very moment, heavy rain fell and lightning continued to flash in the sky until the next morning.
The stories are bad. Very, very bad. From now on, you have to forget about the ancestral stories.
Singai and all the other Tais people were amazed, immediately believing that the white missionary was indeed far more powerful than their own ancestors. They then converted to Christianity.
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AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
ECPNG Pastor in Tais, Papua New Guinea, Keiko Menggo
PNG is one of the countries with the highest Christian population in the world. More than 96 percent of the population is Christian and the majority are Protestant.
This led to major changes. The church forbade a number of tribal traditions, especially magic rituals, tribal warfare and headhunting. One of the church denominations that banned these was the Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (ECPNG), which is dominant on the southern coast of Western Province, including in Tais.
Keiko Menggo is an ECPNG pastor who has been in Tais for four years. He is from another village in the interior and speaks a different language than the Tais people. He lives in a simple stilt house at the edge of the village, built by the villagers specifically for the priest\'s residence. Not far beside his house is a church building, the largest building in the village, which is made of wood and tree bark and is covered with a tin roof.
He was sitting cross-legged in his house when I asked how the process of religious conversion in PNG was able to happen so quickly. “
“Previously, we didn\'t wear clothes; the white missionary showed us what clothes were. They also told us, ‘This is a knife, this is a machine’. They taught us everything. How can we disobey their words?” he replied.
"So, the arrival of the white man brought benefits?" I asked.
The priest nodded confidently. The middle-aged man, who was thin and looked frail, also acted as a moral policeman who stopped all the activities of residents that were considered "inappropriate". That included dancing, singing songs other than church hymns, wearing traditional clothes, drinking alcohol and chewing betel nuts.
“However, not all dance is for worshiping the spirit,” I said.
“When they dance, they also drink alcohol, then get drunk and fight. In addition, they adorn themselves or are naked, so men become attracted to women and vice versa, and then they make love. This is not good. If the love is rejected, they also use black magic to kill each other," he explained.
"So, all their traditions are not good?" I asked again.
