Resurrected

Cult On

Bougainville

From a Bougainville correspondent The people of the Kongara- Koromira district under the shadow of Mt Toroka, a dormant volcano at the southern tip of the Crown Prince Range on Bougainville Island, live in isolation without roads to the eastern coast.

In the past, this area fringing on Bougainville’s huge copper mine at Panguna, has been the centre for entrenched cultist activities. As late as the mid-sixties a cult leader Damen Damien and his brother led their followers into a confrontation with the Catholic mission.

They persuaded local parents to withdraw their children from the mission school. They collected cash from the villages and prophesied miraculous revelations and the end of the world. Damen Damien was arrested by the authorities on a kid napping charge.

In December, the Kieta Local Government Council made a strong appeal to the District Commissioner, Bougainvillean Dr Sarei, to act against another cult operating from the village of Pondoro in the Koro mira census division.

The police riot squad accompanied

by two government officers went to Pondoro and uncovered much evi dence of a cult including an altar strewn with human bones, religious symbols and a large sum of money.

A senior government officer heard charges in a local court.

Three men were convicted of

spreading false reports, keeping

human remains in a house and in ducing a female to have sexual inter course within the clan.

Paul Mena, the reputed longtime leader of this longlong lotu (crazy church) is an escapee of 10 years standing from the Kieta Correctional Institution where he was serving a sentence for practising sorcery, an offence in PNG law, and has again vanished.

Pondoro villagers, whose tradi tional beliefs have been fragmented by successive foreign intervention of German, Australian and Japanese administrations overlayed with west ern religious influence, have con trived a blend of Christianity, ances tor worship, customary incest and cash investment to bring to pass a new life of plenty for all.

They suffered the death of 10 of their people when the place was bombed by the Japanese in World

War Two. Their sense of frustration has grown with the difficulty of get ting their produce from the fertile soil out to market and with their envy of others who have received financial benefit from the Panguna mine and have set up businesses.

Although stories of their bizarre doings have filtered out for the past I 15 years and the present DC in his previous work as a Catholic priest in this area tried to stop their cult ism, the solution may be supplied by today’s Bougainvillean Provincial Government.

A firm response to the Pondoro affair indicates that the local leaders are determined to act against any such cargo cults.

The advent of an elected provincial government offering democratic representation will also bring mem bers who see as retrogressive any practices which inhibit the social and political development of their voters.

However, the few superstitious men in the hinterland of Bougainville, in common with the English soothsayer poring over his football pools and the Australian punter prophet laying his bet, may resist all efforts to make them forgo the dream of manna from heaven. Which is why so many worship the mighty Cargo God.

Fiji's Minister For

Information

-Fiji Minister Without Portfolio Ratu David Toganivalu, has now got a portfolio. It is the Ministry for Information, the first in Fiji. Ratu David, who has studied the news media and its functions for some time, said his appointment followed a study of the existing government in formation service and Cabinet's approval of a plan to expand and improve it. "It will be my ministry's atm to make information services an effective com ponent of the government's function to develop this country and advance the standard of living of the people", he said. The appointment could foreshadow the birth of a government radio station and newspaper.