Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea | Hacker News Reader

Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea

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93 pointsfahimulhaq59 comments

> The Highlanders fancied the music not because it was beautiful. They liked it, they explained, because the trumpets sounded exactly like the brassy screams of captive women selected for feasting.

And then later:

> Our social harmony was going along until the white man arrived … You intrude, and suddenly the things that used to go smoothly no longer do.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that a social harmony in which people love the cries of those they are about to eat is a social harmony which needs disruption, destruction and replacement with something better.

What Papua New Guinea needs is more, not less colonialism; it needs a governor like General Sir Charles Napier, who put down the practice of suttee in Sindh, and who upon being entreated by the native priests that it was a sacred rite which should be respected, responded, 'Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation also has a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!' (from Sir W.F. Napier's 'History of General Sir Charles Napiers Administration of Scinde').

It's a tragedy that civilised powers did not stay there longer and correct more of PNG's broken society; it would be a crime (of ethics, if not of law) if the Western energy companies aren't doing something to fix that society, rather than live on its edges.

Yep. There's a great book called Sick Societies that does a great job dismantling the myth of the noble savage. PNG is one place discussed. IIRC, it also contains some cultures that highly value eating people you betray. The greater the betrayal (as in, you've befriended someone and act in their interests, then kill them), the higher the reward (respect or whatever).

Simply by agreeing on some basic human rights, or just being opposed to murder, is enough to show these societies are bad. Interference isn't intrinsically bad, and there's nothing unethical about putting an end to such atrocities. (It might be easy to fall into the trap of committing your own ethical violations while ending atrocities, but it's not required.)

The book does a good job of providing solid evidence of the harm these cultures inflict on people.

Could the american south of 50 years back included as a "sick society". Just swap "evil witch" with "uppity negro" and exactly the same atrocities were being committed. Labeling whole groups of people as savages or noble is just a lie, and its been used to enslave and dehumanize others through history. We are all capable of being savage or noble, whether you live in a tropical jungle or highrise apartment somewhere.

Even if you do, it doesn't change the myth of the noble savage. Like the poster was saying, these folks are pining for the good days, before the "white man" came and messed it up. All I'm pointing out is that these societies were messed up well before colonization. (I'd guess that post colonization was nearly always an improvement, but that's unrelated.)

> I'm pointing out is that these societies were messed up well before colonization

Using your metric of "messed up society" ie the public, condoned torture and murder of "outsiders", the point am making is that all societies are pretty messed up.

And when you start labelling whole groups of people that way, thats actually step 1 in the plan to exploit, colonize or commit genocide.

That's fine, all societies may be messed up. That's still opposite the claim that they were good before colonization (noble savage, to repeat myself).

And I don't think colonization belongs on the same level as genocide. Having lived in a shitty country, they'd be far better off if they were colonized by a decent country (even today). They might be better off after a genocide, too, but that has a negative effect on everyone that's killed so it's unfair. Colonization doesn't have that issue. The people of said country seem to agree, given their persistence of trying to immigrate to other countries, while expressing a fondness for their home country. If their home country was colonized, they could enjoy the benefits of both. (To be absolutely clear, I'm saying that e.g. Elbonia would benefit greatly by having e.g. Canada peacefully take over their government and run it as a second tier province.)

> That's still opposite the claim that they were good before colonization

What does colonization mean to you? What value did colonization bring (lets talk factual specifics here) that weren't there before.

> They might be better off after a genocide, too

So what exactly are the benefits of a genocide?

This article, though, is documenting the manner in which these tribal groups would, rather than merely condone, but instead actively participate communally in the torture and murder of insiders, their own kinfolk.

As a thought experiment, what does one do, when entering a room only to discover an entire family, all members old enough to know better, is engaged in depraved incestuous rituals?

Moral relativism is always a painful psychological quagmire.

Sorry, but what exactly is your point (in plain english)?

And I used the term "outsider" to refer to any perceived differences, whether its race, gender, religion, beliefs etc. And yes, some people condone; while others actively participate.

I'll repeat, as you seem to have missed mine: every culture, modern or historic, has its fair mix nobles and savages. Tagging a whole group of people as savages is just good old fashioned racism.

My point is that it's difficult to separate the horrible, malevolent, criminal aggressors from the benign spectators or unwilling particpants, when witnessing barbaric events of human cruelty.

Its easy to be a keyboard warrior, and judge others from the safety of your home. Maybe one day you'll be given an opportunity to prove to the world just how brave and courageous you are facing up to "horrible, manovelent criminals" in defense of the helpless. Most of those so called "benign spectators" caught up in such situations are women, children and powerless men trying to stay alive (by not standing up to the savages among them ).

Really. Quite combative.

Drawing conclusions for whichever labels I present, when I did not specify how I might choose to apply the labels. Do you see where you're jumping to conclusions about my disposition yet?

My last words to you are this:

A burning death after mutilation is cruelty. The aggressors are torturing and burning the victims. The murdered suffering before the mob are victims. Everyone else witnessing the events is a spectator, although some of the spectators may be accomplices to the aggressors. Evidence for many of these events will surely be incomplete, and likely skewed. Without evidence in any direction how would anyone know.

But you, you're lashng out at people on the internet. At some point you marked me as an enemy. Maybe you'll realize you misread my remarks. Oh well, done with this conversation. I won't be replying to you again.

You obviously have a good grasp of vocabulary, but use it to obfuscate rather than communicate. You could of-course speak plainly about what you really mean, but that would unmask your true prejudices, wouldn't it?

And yes, from the negro burnt to death in the american south; the salem witch-hunts of the early settlers and the same in PNG, it is all barbaric.

  They liked it, they explained, because the trumpets 
  sounded exactly like the brassy screams of captive 
  women selected for feasting.

That's really an author injecting context where it might not belong.

Considering that these people aren't particularly sophisticated in a social sense, you can't interpret a statement like that directly.

It needs to be examined as:

  a. i like this sound, and appreciate what i'm hearing.

  b. gee, it reminds me of that time the woman was 
     tortured, and her cries echoed across the valley. 
     something i can never forget. something that
     cannot be stopped when mobs rule our culture.

To lend some credence to my detached perspective on this, consider the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull

Imagine people crafting a sculpture in the likeness of an animal, large enough to load an adult person inside, and being entertained by the noises of people (maybe your enemies, maybe not) being burned to death inside of it. Probably sounds like trumpets, no? Lest we forget what ancient Greece was like.

Cruel and unusual punishment isn't as far into the distant past as we'd like to imagine, either. This is just what that quote happened to remind me of.

Mob rule, in a place where social stratification is not adequate enough to provide for objective behavior modification by third party authoritarian paramilitary forces, takes on similar shapes around the world.

To drive the point home, I like a lot of ridiculous music, and some of the vocalists in the bands I like, they scream like they're being tortured to death. Having never witnessed any form of actual torture, firsthand, I still like the music, even though I'm not gripped by any particular desire to induce screams like that in any of my fellow human beings.

The US armed forces are letting old, powerful men rape children in afghanistan. They also enabled ISIS and other violent muslim groups to grow, after overthrowing Saddam and Gaddafi, and even gave money to them. How do you feel about this, and what are you doing against it?

Also, your own armed forces tortured, raped and murdered people. And still do.

You people talk a lot about moral relativism... But then you ignore your own history, past and present, of atrocities. You could try being honest about your real beliefs and intentions at least once in your lives.

PNG is an extraordinary place. My father spent a year in the highlands in 1960, in a missionary outpost in a part of the highlands tha only had contact with the outside world about 5 years earlier. He fell in love with the place and the people; I then visited the same a village a couple of years ago, and had what will probably be the trip of a lifetime, with incredible friendly, welcoming and warm people.

The cities however are very edgy, dangerous and of no charm whatsoever.

This article of course is talking about a very ugly and horrific side of the culture, albeit one that flares up once in a while rather than being ever present.

As it discusses, in the highlands the people didn't even know the rest of the world existed until the 20th century. They hardly ever went to the next village. It was extraordinarily isolated. It's also an incredible story, I strongly recommend the (out of print) book First Contact that describes how both the explorers and locals reacted to this incredible moment - all expertly documented, and recent enough that the authors could interview people who remembered it first hand.

The true highlands are not the towns this article discusses. Mount Hagan is a large bustling town with a main airport. It no doubt has much more occurrences of this ugliness, with communities thrown together more and the chaos of large town living.

The villages in the highlands, where I visited, don't have this kind of vibe, though I'm sure sometimes events like this could occur. They have a sense of community that we in the west have lost. For instance, all the children play together in one big bundling group of fun. The 8 year olds, 5 year olds and 3 year olds (with 1 year olds on their hip) all being kids, without parents (let alone a helicopter one) - though any adult might interact if required. When this type of community setting goes wrong you get the 'immune system' response this article describes, but this doesn't paint any of the daily positives when things are normal.

Like the author I'm optimistic that education will make the bad parts a think of the past. But don't think PNG is a country of savages - the highlands that I and my father knew, whilst transitioning in an exceptionally unique way are full of humanity as wonderful as anywhere in this world.

I have been to PNG three times. Early '80s when I was three for ten months (had my fourth birthday there), again when I was thirteen for three months, and lastly about eight years ago for a few weeks.

I agree with your observations, which feel quite astute to me.

Some of the cities are awful, particularly Moresby. (I stayed in the Mapang guest house that was mentioned when we got stranded in Moresby due to a missed connecting flight. Travel plans always involved trying to get in and out of Moresby in the same day and not leaving the airport if at all possible.)

I spent most of my time in Ukarumpa but have visited Goroka as well as Lae and Madang. Never been near Mount Hagan, which has a long history of violence.

One thing I noticed changing over the times I visited was the increased amount of security. The razor-wire fences, not just in Morseby. Armed security guards and such.

With around 860 distinct languages, isolation and travel difficulty imposed by incredibly rugged terrain, it is a country with remarkably unique challenges.

Thanks to missionaries ... 96 percent of people in Papua New Guinea consider themselves Christian.

That's a bizarre bit of editorializing to put into what should be a balanced work of journalism.

I imagine the writer was trying to imply that most of the population in Papua New Guinea won't participate in events like these because of a belief system they've acquired. However, when a writer words things like that, it makes me question their inherent bias.

I'm not quite sure what you're objecting to here. That missionaries operate in PNG?

I'm objecting to the implication that we should be thankful that the people of Papua New Guinea have been "converted" to a different system of beliefs.

The "conversion" of various indigenous peoples to essentially a western system of beliefs is what I find disagreeable. Proselytization events such as these have resulted in a significant loss to the preservation of various cultures (and languages) around the world and I feel have contributed to a loss of identity especially among indigenous or aboriginal communities.

Forgive me if I seem overly sensitive to this, but some of my ancestors got to experience this "wondrous conversion" firsthand and it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

"Thanks" is not being used to imply thankfulness in that sentence. Synonyms here would be "because of" or "due to".

Oh I interperted the use of "thankful" here as in relation to the cause, not in relation to being thankful.

Your previous reading was correct.

A bit of a nitpick, but Christianity and Judaism Islam are middle eastern belief systems. They also heavily disrupted western thought for nearly two millennia. But they are not endemic of the west, but an imposition, albeit, now voluntary, but with also a terrible and violent history against the native western traditions.

I'm well aware that some might consider them "middle-eastern", which is why I said "essentially" a western system of beliefs given that the representation of them today is more reflective of current "western" culture than how they originated.

It's not clear to me what the writer was thinking. It might be just a causal attribution as others here are suggesting, or it might have a connotation of approval.

Anyway, I think you're making an important point that shouldn't be lost. There is a great arrogance in thinking we know how other people should live.

The "thanks" threw me for a second too, but like placeybordeaux, I believe it's being used in a merely causal sense. E.g. "Thanks to all the rain we’ve been having this summer the grass and dirt outside are often muddy."

Although the word also threw me when I read the article I thought it was possibly a negative thanks. I think you are reading to much into it.

> The "conversion" of various indigenous peoples to essentially a western system of beliefs is what I find disagreeable.

Keeping people in a zoo is more disagreeable to me. This liberal idea of keeping tribal cultural of any kind around is incredibly disturbing.

We should not be using the communities poorest children for instance as repositories of language.

As a rich, educated person I would never want my child to learn a dead language. Even Latin with it's ivory status. Their future will be hard enough.

Keeping people in a zoo is more disagreeable to me. This liberal idea of keeping tribal cultural of any kind around is incredibly disturbing.

What does conversion of people to a western system of beliefs have to do with keeping people in a zoo? No one said anything about keeping people there; what I take issue with is the coerced or forced conversion of people.

We should not be using the communities poorest children for instance as repositories of language.

I don't think anyone implied that, I have no idea how you've extrapolated that idea from the statements made.

As a rich, educated person I would never want my child to learn a dead language. Even Latin with it's ivory status. Their future will be hard enough.

I fail to see what your socioeconomic status has to do with this conversation. Regardless, "dead" languages are not at issue here. Even if they were, understanding languages that are no longer in common use is important in understanding the past of humanity. I only object to the active discouragement of learning.

Learning for the sake of gaining knowledge itself seems like a reasonably admirable trait.

The photo caption doesn't have the full context of that statement. Read the paragraph below.

As such, more than 96 percent of Papua New Guineans identify as Christian. Yet theirs is a fluid, syncretic Christianity, not unlike the Christianity of the Middle Ages, one that has been grafted onto a long-established cosmology rife with demons, witches and relics imbued with power.

EDIT: Reading your follow up comments, I agree the "Thanks" bit means "Due to" not actual thankfulness in this context.

PNG has been the subject of a rather horrific ongoing civil war over the past some 45 years, but scarcely documented and seldom known in the West: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict

It's rather surreal.

I think the conflict concerns Idonesia, not PNG.

Yeah it's in West Papua rather than PNG.

It probably takes longer to figure out how to respond to this article than to other articles linked to on Hacker News

This is true, even in situations where you don't care about downvotes.

The craziest thing about this is that the perpetrators of these crimes do not seem to be "using their beliefs as an excuse to kill for other reasons." Rather, it appears that long-held beliefs in witchcraft are the reason why the perpetrators are killing. They sincerely believe they're in the right when they burn those women alive!

Warning to readers: the article contains pictures of crowds in villages watching as women accused of witchcraft are tortured before they get burned to death. It's shocking, disgusting, and disturbing.

About 15 years ago, Monica had been a typical PNG wife, caring for her children and her many subsistence gardens, until her father died suddenly from a heart attack. As the eldest child, she was entitled to inherit his house, but her younger brother wanted it badly and accused her of killing their father with witchcraft. Jelasy like his is very often a motivating factor in Highlands witchcraft accusations.

Certainly some are using their beliefs as an excuse to kill for other reasons, manipulating the fear of unwitting participants. As with any and every belief system though-out history, it will be manipulated by some to their own ends.

I agree that it is probable that the majority of perpetrators are behaving out of long-held beliefs though. Beliefs that need to be dismantled.

You've got a point. Juxtapose this with contemporary Eastern European corpse mutilation practices which are purported to serve as protection against recently deceased relatives morphing into a vampires and feeding on their kinfolk:

see video (Vampire Legend) at: http://www.pbs.org/topics/history/world-history/

And note in this PBS documentary how the local villagers sanctioned the fugitive's behavior and motives. Curious also how the old 'deviant' burial evidence in Britain and elsewhere imply these same practices have been going on for millennia throughout Europe. This suggests, given suitable context (as in Salem, US not that long ago), such 'unenlightened, uneducated PNG primitives' conditioned behavior could manifest anywhere at any time. /s

Similarly out there beliefs Bali...

http://www.smh.com.au/world/communist-victims-exhumed-in-bal...

These reactionary islanders should know best practice is to imprison your witches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse

The scrollbar was very irritating

US evangelical christian pastors have been leading witch burning in Africa pretty recently. They burned children alive:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-children-de...

That article does not say that the pastors leading the witch burnings there are from the US, nor does it say they are not, it is not specified.

They quote someone from a US church saying they are no longer in contact with a Nigerian church they had been associated with.

So your only beef is with the nationality of the pastors? Really?

It was the US evangelical pastors that shaped their beliefs:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.th...

Your post read an awful lot like a statement of fact that was meant to be backed up by the link following the colon. I just pointed out that the information was not present in the article.

You wonder why I focus on the distraction, I wonder why you put it there.

There seems to be history of failed ideologues from the west going to poorer nations to try to sell ideologies that didn't sell here: fanatical Marxism, fascism, and now dominionist ideology. It's like a form of toxic waste dumping.

I highly doubt that. For one, "witch hunting" is not part of any mainline church doctrine nor is it in the new testament. Yes I know it is in the old testament, but the OT Jewish laws do not govern the church. A good example of this is of course found in the new testament. What happened when a man was caught in the act of adultery? He was simply kicked out of the congregation, and only through repentance and remorse would one be let back in.

For the most part, the links you posted only mentioned pentecostal denominations. And as much as I disagree with pentecostalism, I really can't even tear into it here because that is not even what is at play here.

This is Africa we are talking about. An entire continent that is filled with tribes and small villages that at least at one time, were ruled by witchdoctors. Got a plague among you? Sacrifice a few children they say. Got AIDS? Find a 10 year virgin and "purify" yourself with her. These things have been the norm over there for ages. The media simply loves to find the worst of the worst and brandish it all over. There are plenty of good missionaries and ministries over there: http://tinyurl.com/njaqtzc but they are of course ignored and not shared because they are not as "exciting" and sensationalized as the negativity.

"This is Africa we're talking about."

The only reason Christians in the west aren't as barbaric as primitive people in other countries is that the enlightenment happened. Without the age of secular reason building a society to hold them in check, Christians would continue to be as barbaric as they were in the middle ages. To this day, it is easy to find Evangelical Christians with batshit beliefs about demons and people living with dinosaurs, Mormons who believe blacks have the mark of Cain, and Christians in general who believe in hell and that homosexuals are going there. Without our strong enforcement of secular laws, I shudder to think what medieval punishments these people would dole out on unfortunate gays, blacks, and non-Christians.

>This is Africa we are talking about. An entire continent that is filled with tribes and small villages that at least at one time, were ruled by witchdoctors. Got a plague among you? Sacrifice a few children they say.

Your ideas about africa come straight out of the 1850s, and I'm embarrassed to read these kind of comments here. Atleast the people from the 1850s have an excuse ( no internet, pictures, books, travel etc to get the real facts); but whats yours?

No, this is from several groups of missionaries I personally know over there right now. Some in the bush who have to deal with witch doctors running villages, and others in big cities where they have to deal with somehow paying $800 for rent a month.

You take my quote somewhat out of context, what I am saying is there have been plenty of terrible things happening over there. Yet this one person tries to post/comment with a "look what the christians did" type of attitude.

So your friends have witnessed human sacrifice of children? Get real. If you dont want to be taken out of context, dont use colorful anectdotes straight out of a 1850s novel.

"This is Africa we are talking about. An entire continent that is filled with tribes and small villages that at least at one time, were ruled by witchdoctors. "

Woah, woah, woah, hold your horses there, fella. I grew up in Africa and whilst I am a member of a tribe, I did not grow up in a small village governed by the friendly local witchdoctor. And no, most Africans do not use witchdoctors as their HMOs either. The trope that Africa is what you see on the Discovery channel is something that I, and a lot of my African friends, find somewhat irritating. It would be like showing video of a couple cowboys in Montana and playing it over and over to a non-American audience as definitive proof of what life in America is like for the average American. Yes, the video will represent what life is like for a group of Americans so it is true(-ish) but not close to being representative for the average American and so definitely paints a misleading picture.

As for the original issue of witch burning, I do agree with you that the idea of mainline churches in America promoting witch burning in Africa is ludicrous. Would it be possible to find one example of an American missionary doing this? Probably. But it would be a real stretch to say this would be acceptable to any church other than a very, very, very fringe group. Kind of like how the Westboro Baptist Church gets outsized media attention but no one seems to mention that the "church" consists pretty much entirely of just the family members of one kooky guy.

One media pro tip I found that works. Whenever you see a story with the format <person/group I know very little about / don't really have positive feelings for> did/said <something outrageous, 6σ deviation from normal behavior>, dig a little below the headlines and quite often you will find (a) it didn't happen the way the headline purported it did or (b) there is some context or reasonable viewpoint that shows what happened is not quite as outrageous as it appears. For example, there is this NPR story about a woman suing her 12 year old nephew for $100k because he broke her wrist whilst jumping into her arms when greeting her as she arrived at his birthday party (http://www.npr.org/2015/10/14/448544919/woman-sues-nephew-fo...). Your first thought will likely be "holy cow, what kind of monster would do such a thing. Where's my pitchfork?" Then you read the follow-up from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/13/us/aunt-nephew-lawsuit/) which explains that in Connecticut, where the incident took place, you can only sue individuals and so for her to get paid by the parent's homeowners' insurance, she had to name the nephew on the lawsuit and in fact, the boy and his family were supportive of her lawsuit.

News media is broken. The news has always had an element of info-tainment but our nature as an audience is driving the media to focus more on the entertainment side of news and so we are being led down this path where stories cater more to our need to stroke our biases and encourage us to pat ourselves on the back for being good and better than "those" people

If Africa is anything like the Philippines, it was ruled by "witch doctors", but that was before exposure to Europeans (i.e. 400 years ago). Perhaps esaym just meant a really long time ago. In the last 50 years the only place you'll find which doctors is out in the more remote rural areas.

>only place you'll find which doctors is out in the more remote rural areas

Which is what I am talking about. You think these "Christian" "witch hunts" happen in the middle of the big city?

You don't need to follow "mainline church doctrine" to be an evangelical christian or a witch hunter.

The point is, if it is not church doctrine one follows, then how do you label them as "Christian"? As the original poster has done.

Westboro Baptist Church is a classic example of a Christian group that doesn't follow a "mainline" doctrine.

Yeah they should just get back to eating witches, like before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korowai_people#Cannibalism

Burning people is lossy oppression; I expect better from PNG.

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