life and death on this island

There was a man who was a good soccer player. He was 30, and had lived in Goroka for most of his life, but his home village was in Manus. He was married to a nurse; his wife was from the same village in Manus. They had two young sons. He worked in the coffee business – not growing the beans himself, but buying them from local growers and selling them internationally. He was reasonably well-off; he had affairs with two other women, considered his second and third wives. (To have additional wives, you have to be able to financially afford additional wives.)

A month ago, out of the blue, he decided he needed to go back to his village. He hadn’t been back for a long time. He went around Goroka town to all the people he was close to, asking for money for his plane far back. He raised enough, and returned to the village. And last week he died. Suddenly; he was not overtly ill.

Everyone is talking. Because he had such a “strong cultural marriage” – he was married to women from the same village – it is said that other villagers may have used sorcery to kill him, because he had extra wives. “AIDS” is also whispered, in a malevolent way – again because he had so many wives. (It’s a funny thing: polygamy is accepted – and the wives fighting, often violently, is accepted too – yet if something terrible happens – a sudden death, for instance – polygamy always comes up as the reason why. “He got sick because…”)

The coffee company the man worked for gave 5000kina to the first wife so that she and the two boys could fly up to the village for the funeral. The family are burying him quickly. There is a lot of fear and distrust; people expect his death will be avenged, the fatal sorcerer will be found.

When a person dies, it is commonplace to hear mention of sorcery. Medical explanations for a death might be available, but they don’t address the “real reason” for the death. Sorcery accusations do: they explain why someone died in terms of their relationships with other people in the community. Perhaps the dead person was selfish and did not share wealth, or showed disrespect for a village by disrespecting his village wife by getting a second wife. Sorcery accusations are increasing in PNG – and their side effect, the killing of suspected sorcerers. It’s a profound problem that is testing, and eroding, communities. And it doesn’t go away with education, science, literacy (or Christianity for that matter) … To throw my ten cents in – I think accusations might lessen if poverty decreased, and access to services (medical care, schools, respected police) increased. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.