Several times over the years, I have broached the subject of sorcery among PNG people. There was a standard response.
I was told that only kids believe in sorcery. It took many years to realize that sorcery was not a subject that many PNG people were willing to discuss with expatriates. Many were afraid of being laughed at.
But in recent years, the issue has come to the fore with foreign lesbian activists seeking to make sorcery killing a gender issue. Please click:
But sorcery is alive and thriving in the nation today. We see the effects of sorcery every day. PNG people do not allow strangers to enter their homes. The best they can be allowed is to sit under the house.
My children have been warned not to visit certain family members as they are poison people. They will put poison in food. The pressure for land in the highlands is causing village men and women to resort to poison to take land.
It is a common practice for men and women to hang their washing in the bedroom to prevent the clothes from being sprinkled with poison.
But there are still scribes from PNG Attitude who seek to regard sorcery as child's play. It is much more than that. At the same time, there is sorcery that is a figment of the imagination.
There are PNG scribes who want to down play sorcery. Too many old time expatriate scribes have been kept in the dark and fed on horse sh-t. The expatriate pastors are more concerned with satan. Please click:
Sorcery & sanguma: What Attitude experts have to say
My father used to tell the story of sitting with a group of Arabs in North Africa playing cards during World War 2.
One Arab would reach into his cloak and take out food crumbs that he threw on the ground. Chickens would appear out of nowhere to eat the food. Magic? More likely hypnotism.
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