The Goroka show is a tribal festival and competition in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Dozens of tribes attend to display their culture and music, and to dance. You go there to take pictures of their fantastic costumes.
See photos from the Goroka Show in the Papua New Guinea Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
We wrote before about arriving in PNG. Today, we're sailing the Sepik River on board the MV Sepik Spirit:
After it was full dark, we sat on rattan and cushions, docked off Mindimbit village near the bank of the river.
Canoes glided silently alongside, and their curious inhabitants, mostly adolescent boys, held their faces to the windows and peered at us inside.
“Now I will tell you about the way our elders taught us the secrets of the spirits,” Lawrence began.
First the disclaimer: “I was fourteen. I was working since I was twelve, with westerners. I ate western food. I did not believe there were spirits.”
Still, at fourteen, there was room for doubt.
“It was frightening. We would start at six p.m. and they kept us awake until six in the morning. This went on for days.
“They built a wall in front of the spirit house with a door too small to walk through. One night they lit the palm fronds over the door into a fire and told us to run as fast as we could and squeeze through that little door, and not to get burned by the falling ashes.
“My grandfather was the leader of the village so I had to go first. Five boys were behind me.
I was scared but I ran fast as I could go and I squeezed through that door and up the steps into the spirit house.”
Squeezing through a door too small, Lawrence explained, symbolized the return to the mother’s womb, because you must reunite with your mother’s spirit as a rite of passage before your father can teach you all the spiritual secrets.
We were a rapt audience.
“When we got inside the spirit house we got bad news. The men from the village were there and they were whipping us with canes to show us the power of each spirit. Ohhh, and it hurt!” Lawrence grimaced and held his forehead.
He pulled his legs up on the sofa.
“And now it was late, about five in the morning. They gave each boy a betel nut. My grandfather told me the one he gave me was a special one. They told us to chew them, it would be good for us. We spit out the juice and kept the meat inside our mouths.
“They gave us pieces of ginger and told us to chew them. They played drums and these flutes at the same time. I felt like maybe I had a gin and tonic!
“I was dizzy and then I started seeing skeletons dancing and then I had these incredible dreams. And I believe in Jesus and Mary but since that night I have also known that spirits are real, too.”
*****
Here is how the spirits communicate with Lawrence: “One night I heard someone say, ‘Lawrence, get up and move your pillow.’ He meant for me to put my head where my feet were and turn around.
“I woke up my wife and asked her if she said something and she said no. So I went back to sleep. I woke up again when I heard someone say, ‘Lawrence, you missed your chance.’
“Another time I dreamed so clearly exactly what footsteps I should take. I would find a certain leaf and just underneath this certain shape ginger. I walked to that spot and I looked under the leaf. And there it was just like in my dream.”
*****
The final part of gaining knowledge of the spirits is the skin cutting. You must ceremonially remove your mother’s blood and give it back to her family, ending the power of her influence.
“We believe the father gives us the knowledge but the blood comes from the mother and so it must return to her. So my mother’s brother came from another village.
“The night of the skin cutting we stayed up all night. When it was very late the men made us go into the water and stay for one hour so our skin would get soft. Ohhh, it was so cold!
Lawrence massaged his temples.
“When it was time I laid down on top of my mother’s brother. So the blood would fall on him. And they cut me.”
With a flourish he raised his right sleeve to show the results.
“Sometimes they cut your back but I asked they only cut my arms because I had to go back to work. “
He had to have time to heal. But he didn’t heal. He was infected.
“I asked for medicine but my grandfather refused. He asked me, ‘What have you done wrong?’ I said nothing, nothing over and over but he kept asking me until finally I admitted I had stayed with my girlfriend the night before.
“Before they would use sharp bamboo leaves but now they use razors. I asked my grandfather if the razor was old but he said no it was bought new for this purpose. My infection was punishment for this bad act.” Lawrence really, reverently believed it.
“After some days I washed it with salt and warm water and finally it was okay.”
*****
Lawrence thought the missionaries were wrong to exclude the possibility that other religious beliefs may be true. And in the forests and on the rivers of Papua New Guinea, where when darkness falls it plummets, spirits lurked more than down any highway.
His grandfather, who Lawrence called, “A famous headhunter," told him at the end of his weeks of spiritual training (spiritual training can take six months, but Lawrence had to get back to his job) that he would have unbelievable opportunities in the future.
One of the people he met on the Sepik Spirit recently offered him a trip to the U.S., and to Lawrence, that was proof positive.
(Photos from the Papua New Guinea Gallery on EarthPhotos.com.)
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