- Hi, what's your name? - God forbid you so start your acquaintance in Papua New Guinea. The fact is that here the name is sacred and an attempt to find out it can end tragically.
You can't just make up a name for a newborn. It must be taken from a deceased relative, whose skull has been preserved. If those are over, then it is necessary to borrow from relatives. If they no longer have skulls with names, then you need to get it. It is for this reason that our colleague, a subject of the Queen of England, introduces himself simply: "Dick." And then suddenly the aborigines will like the name "Richard" and then not take his head off. Literally, pah-pah!
By the way, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, dreaming of creating an independent state "Papuan Union" wrote a letter to Queen Victoria of England asking for protection. However, he sent the same letters to the German Chancellor Bismarck and the Russian Tsar Alexander II. The Germans were the first to appear on the Maclay Coast and founded their colony there. Following them, the south of the island was captured and colonized by the British. The Russians did not come at all. As a result, the second largest island on the planet, New Guinea, was torn apart between Holland (north), Germany (east) and England (southwest).
"Ina lasanga" or "twice on the hand", that is, for the tenth day I have to "make friends" with the natives of the Maclay Coast, collecting knowledge about military rituals, sacred mysteries and "cargo cult", which appeared, it turns out, much earlier than the war, but in her years it became unusually strong and developed. Obtaining data from the Papuans is a complex operation. And the point is not even the difficulties of translating from Tok Pisin into English, and then into Russian, but the fact that all these stories are considered sacred by the Papuans and are therefore carefully hidden from outsiders. The fact that the Papuans see my fellow countryman Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay is great help.
In the photo: Thanks to the still living memory of Maclay, I managed to win the trust of the people of the Huli tribe and neighboring tribes, and even take a direct part in their life
The territory where Miklouho-Maclay lived and traveled is currently the district of the city of Madang - the former capital of the German colonial lands. In 1919, as a result of the Versailles Peace, the Germans, as the side that lost the First World War, transferred their colony in New Guinea to the British, and they, in turn, gave their own and German units under the control of Australia. But 23 years later, the German part was captured by the Japanese.
Everyone knows about Pearl Harbor, but it can hardly be called a war. The US Navy base was simply destroyed by an air raid. But a really real war with trenches, pillboxes, offensives, defense, seizure of a position, hand-to-hand combat of infantrymen unfolded precisely on the territory of the island of New Guinea.
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The warring parties actively involved the Papuans in their military operations, who were at the most primitive level of development and did not at all understand the essence of what was happening.
In the eyes of the Papuans, the Japanese, Europeans, Australians and Americans are acting extremely cynical, with senseless cruelty. The Papuans themselves kill people from foreign tribes for two quite sensible and acceptable needs. First, to satisfy hunger. For other large animals, besides saltwater crocodiles and pigs introduced by the Portuguese, were never found on the island. Crocodiles and wild pigs of sufficient size (to have enough for everyone) are very difficult prey for hunters armed with only sharp sticks, arrows and clubs. Human meat can be obtained by only one dexterous hunter armed with a bamboo knife (in fact, a sharp sliver).
Secondly, the Papuans call their children only by the name of a deceased relative or a killed enemy, having previously learned the name of the victim. Those. a person could be killed only because of his name, but for this it was necessary to bring to the village the head of the killed "godfather" for safekeeping. It is this "cranial" name that is considered the real one among the Papuans, but it is carefully guarded and "in the world" is represented by a "worldly" name or nickname. If the young father does not have a stock of named skulls, he can borrow a skull with a name for the child from his father or from his uncle.
In the photo: Children of the Huli tribe with cranial names obtained once by their older relatives during bounty hunts. On the second day, we were allowed to refer to them by name, and this is a manifestation of the highest trust
What did the warring parties do in the eyes of the Papuans? They killed and threw the bodies of those killed, that is, they did not even eat their meat. It looked like a mindless buffalo carnage from the window of a passing train, just for fun. There was such an episode in the history of US railways. Or how now poachers in Africa kill hundreds of elephants and rhinos for tusks and horns, and throw away the carcasses.
Worse, the military killed people from a distance without knowing their names, so thousands of "cranial" names were gone for future use. To say that the Papuans were shocked by all this means to say nothing.
The shock of the primitive psyche left its traces in the cargo cult and in numerous legends, which are now being passed down from mouth to mouth for the fourth generation.
Other stories are overly verbose, especially in those passages that speak of the wanderings of the "white demons." It lists in detail all the villages and camps, reports where the Japanese soldiers slept, ate and did other necessities that were completely irrelevant for the development of the action. Apparently this is still important for the Papuans.
To the actual legends of the people of the Huli tribe, there were also added messages recorded from the missionaries who settled there, based on true events. These messages are quite diverse in form: among them there are ordinary stories, and texts of a protocol nature, and solemn speeches. But even in this form, they are able to convey the appearance of people who have been subjected to the most severe alien influence. And to this day they have preserved their primitive amazement of cannibals at the senselessness of weapons of mass destruction of civilized humanists. All these legends, traditions, legends will be published in a separate book. Here I will describe my first impressions of the people of the Huli tribe.
In the photo: On the faces of the hoolie warriors who meet us, "hospitable" coloring, they go into battle with their faces completely smeared with yellow clay
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There is hardly any other such people about which there would be such conflicting opinions as the Huli - the largest tribe in the east of New Guinea. On the one hand, it was the man of this tribe, Michael Somare, who was educated at the school of the Japanese occupiers, who later led the struggle for the independence of Papua New Guinea and became the first prime minister. On the other hand, the bullies' hunting trips for human skulls have given them a cannibal notoriety. And what terrible scenes of ritual revelry and murder are played out in their secret cult alliances - and beyond words.
I will only explain that to this day, other festivals of folk song and dance "sing-singi" have their beginning a sacred ritual that was once practiced: they brought the most beautiful girl and / or boy, whom all the men of the tribe raped, and then stabbed, roasted and ate.
Photo: In this photo provided to us by missionaries, killed in an intertribal war and will later be eaten, his name will serve as the name for the killer's newborn son
After all this, you might think that bullies are some kind of devils. In reality, however, the opposite is true. Everyone who has lived among them for a long time - remember Miklouho-Maclay, was delighted with their spontaneity, their pure, sometimes even annoying friendship, their good nature and ardent love for the truth. And if there were not known horror stories about the hunt for human heads and ritual horrors, it could be argued that there is no more virtuous and honest people in the world than the blasphemers. It is not for nothing that images of their warriors with faces painted with yellow clay have become the hallmark of Papua New Guinea. The yellow-faced hoolie warriors are even depicted on the 50 kin banknote, along with a portrait of Michael Somare.
Both of these assessments are equally valid. Good and evil get along well with each other in the hearts of blasphemers, and since these people are very emotional, they constantly fluctuate between extreme cruelty, engulfing them in the heat of battle or when performing cult rites, and exceptional good nature in quiet moments of life. There is something childish in these people: they, without hesitation, can give their friends everything that they themselves have, they can indulge in unrestrained joy, and then again become unusually cruel, without even realizing their cruelty.
The duality of the blasphemy's character finds, however, another explanation. They consider themselves to be real people. This means that everyone else is second-class and does not deserve the title of human at all. You can treat them as you like, because moral laws do not apply to them. Inside the tribe, one is supposed to behave in such a way as not to cause anyone the slightest harm and to the best of his ability to help everyone.
The ideal for a bully is someone who helps others. And also, who is ashamed to do anything contrary to the customs of antiquity. They respect the property of their fellow tribesmen and consider theft to be one of the worst crimes. Blasphemers treat old age with deep respect, listen carefully to the advice of old people (who, by the way, run all the village affairs, jointly performing the role of the local council of deputies) and will never dare to reproach them that they can no longer work.
To protect their community, bullies do not spare either property or life itself and - which is rare for savages and not everywhere in New Guinea - they experience an irresistible aversion to lies. "Huli-meen sakod-ke isi mbake" - "The word huli is one and indivisible." The custom does not allow men to infringe on the honor of the wives and daughters of their fellow tribesmen, but sometimes passions make their own amendments to the ideal.
Photo: Young woman of the Huli tribe
Huli men possess that very beauty which one Dane aptly called "the splendor of the savage." In the photo you see people tall and slender, with bodies of dark chocolate color, and on holidays painted with yellow, red and black colors. Their chests and necks are richly adorned with necklaces of shells, fangs, fruit pits, and braided fibers. They have open faces with wide noses. With bright colored stripes on the cheeks and on the forehead, and above all this, like a crown, bast braids woven into curly hair and a diadem of black cassowary feathers and yellow shiny feathers of a bird of paradise.
The older the bullies become, the easier their decoration becomes. But they pay more attention and work to their hairstyle, each time braiding the braids in a different way, which serve as an indicator of their age class. And those who have lived to be gray wears only one piece of jewelry - a mother-of-pearl breastplate.
Huli's man is the sovereign master of the house. With his wife, he can do whatever he wants, since after the wedding she becomes his property. He can, if his friends ask him about it, borrow or give her and can, even if she makes him angry, immediately kill her. (Do not forget: the meat of the grumpy wife will be eaten by relatives and friends, and the head with the name will be saved for the unborn child). But, of course, more often than not a huli man gets used to his wife, or, perhaps even more, to her cooking; In any case, inseparable couples are very often found there, and another man finds himself even under the thumb of his wife.
In the photo: Inseparable couples are very common, and another man finds himself even under the thumb of his wife
All major household chores are done by women. They look after the children and prepare food - usually from sago flour with fish or meat and coconut oil - using hot stones. The women, on the other hand, are responsible for the pigs - the only domestic animals besides dogs (if necessary, the hoolie woman feeds piglets with milk from her own breast). Crop care, which basically comes down to weeding. Making flour from the heart of the sago palm. Weaving of all kinds of decorations and household items: a fan for fanning the fire, cords for tying brushwood, etc. Certain types of fishing are also considered to be female activities.
Men, on the other hand, take on the clearing of land for slash-and-burn agriculture, felling sago palms, making boats, building houses, lulling fish with bows and arrows, various kinds of carving and exchange trade.
The duties of men also include keeping the traditions. This is extremely important for the hoolie, since the prosperity of society depends on it. Let me explain why: this nationality is divided into a number of clan groups descending from one or another mythical ancestor-totems. In ancient times, these ancestors created one after another all the plants, animals, all natural phenomena and cultural values in the world. In other words, they made the world what it is, and people got the opportunity to live in this world. However, everything that was once created by ancestors is gradually losing its vitality. That is why the "white demons", with the help of their powerful sorcery, intercept the blessings sent down by their ancestors.
Therefore, sorcerers must, through magical actions, from time to time recreate the world and culture, playing special ideas at their cult festivals that reproduce the myths of the omnipotent ancestors. Also, cargo cult rituals are imitations of the "witchcraft of white people": they wear halves of coconuts on their ears, imitating headphones.
This reproduction must be very accurate and conscientious, for the slightest omission or distortion of the text can lead to flaws and disorder in the world.
Konstantin Stogniy