and the spine tingles

When the blood runs cold and the spine tingles in Papua New Guinea

There have always been stories of

weird and inexplicable happenings,

generally attributed to non-white races, which include fire-walking, bone-pointing, the Indian rope trick, the performances of the gully gully man and of the witch doctors of Africa.

And anyone who has lived in Papua New Guinea for any length of time has heard of, or experienced, instances of the occult and of sorc ery among the primitive tribes.

What employer of native labour has not been approached at some time by one of his employees asking to be allowed to visit his home village hundreds of miles away by land or sea as a close relative had died over night?

The invariable answer, when questioned as to the source of the bad news, was Mi lookim wind (spirit) belong im along night.

My first impulse as a newcomer to New Guinea 50 years ago was to refuse the request as being a blatant try-out of a greenhorn employer, and one would put up with sulks and mopings for a few days as a result.

However, my attitude changed when, on subsequent recruiting visits to some of the villages, I found that the man had spoken the truth and a near-relative had, in fact, died at the time and date mentioned.

If distance and remoteness were no bar, I never afterwards refused a request for compassionate leave on such grounds and was often reward ed by the arrival of several volun teer employees from that area.

Another manifestation of some kind of perception occurred when in 1928, at Lae, I pegged out the position of a number of postholes for a cargo shed beside the airstrip and left a team of raw and newly arrived labourers from the Sepik, many miles away, to dig the holes with bush knives.

On returning some time later I found no holes dug and the team huddled in a silent group some dis tance away. Asking through an in terpreter why no work had been done, 1 was told that as soon as the first hole was started a wind ap peared and told them that they were disturbing an ancient battlefield and burying-ground. With pegs relo cated some considerable distance away the holes were dug with no fur ther demur. Although there was no

visible evidence of burial mounds or subsidence of graves I made inqu iries locally and found that the Laewombas had fought a battle there with the coastal tribes many years previously. The Sepiks could not possibly have known that.

Throughout New Guinea there has always been a universal belief and fear of an evil spirit or devil man known as a maselei and I had an instance of this fear when tramp ing down the Markham Valley with a number of recruits just before the war.

We camped for the night in a small compound near the village of Jiviseng. There was a large open sided shed in which the boys bedded down for the night and an enclosed house kiap in which my net and bed were set up.

Sometime after midnight, I was awakened by the entire team burst ing into my hut, all in a state of ter ror and shouting Maselei i come up, i walkabout long all boi. No effort of mine would induce them to move out and at daylight there was no trouble in getting them on the track away from the place. What they saw I know not but they certainly had the “wind” up in more ways than one.

A man named Jim, whose word could be relied upon, often told the story of his appointment as planta tion manager on one of the very remote Ninigo Group which was serviced every eight weeks by a small steamer from Rabaul. All went well and to schedule for eight months and then the ship failed to arrive at the end of the 10th month.

Days drew out into weeks with re sultant exhaustion of staple food supplies, tobacco, liquor and medi cal requisites and in those days there was no radio for news of the outside world.

Things were at a low ebb when one evening the boss boy came grin ning to tell Jim that the ship would arrive next day bringing a red haired man to take over as manager as Jim was needed back in the firm’s Rabaul office.

Sure enough, sunrise brought smoke on the horizon and shouts of “Sail-ho” from the men.

Taken out by canoe, our friend was on board as the anchor hit the sand and was greeted by the skipper apologising for the delay caused by

a machinery breakdown on the pre vious trip and resultant long wait for spares from Australia. But, he said “I have news for you, I am taking you back to Rabaul to another posi tion and”, as a red-haired came for ward, “here is your relief’.

My most vivid experience of the occult occurred at Salamaua when it was whispered around that there would be a demonstration of sorcery in a nearby village. About a dozen interested Europeans and dozens of locals turned up at the appointed time and were shown a large and new sago palm thatched hut stand ing on stilts in an open space.

The sorcerer and his disciples huddled around a fire about 50 feet away and we were invited to enter the hut which we found to be empty.

The door was closed and a long bamboo pole was then thrust through the side of the'shed leaving about half protruding outside.

Leaves thrown on the fire raised a pungent column of smoke and then after a rising chorus of drumming and changing from the sorcerers’ at tendants the pole began to tremble and shake until finally it was lashing about like the tail of an angry tiger.

The drumming and singing died away, the bamboo came to rest and we were allowed to again inspect the inside of the building. It was quite empty of anything.

Again the ceremony was started with the pole inserted through another side of the shed. As the bamboo went into its trembling act, I was invited to take a firm hold of it. Immediately the incantations rose to a high pitch, the pole lashed about violently and I was hurled some distance to fall flat on the ground.

At this point, Jim Livingstone, the local warrant officer in charge of police, accompanied by a number of his men, burst into the clearing, cursing us for fools, scattering the assembled crowd and finally de molishing the hut.

I have no explanation for this oc currence and it left me with an im pression of an enormously powerful and evil force on the hidden end of the bamboo pole.

I never wanted to be part of such things again.

Bert Weston