FEASTING AT KIBIGILAGI
A pig feast among the Moni or Wolani tribes was exciting. The gathering of clans, renewing of friendships, making of political alliances…brides to find and flirt with, and sometimes a private bartering with the father over the bride price. And there was the eager smell of roasted pork for people who didn’t eat meat that often.
I was only eight years old on this trek to Kibigilagi—from Homejo among the Moni tribe, to the edge of Wolani land. We had crossed the raging torrent of a river with trepidation. My dad told my younger sister Ro and me to sit very still—don’t wiggle—as our carriers crossed the swinging rattan bridge. Arriving at dusk we camped near a large village, and while Mom cooked supper my sister and I mingled with the natives. We watched them eat baked sweet potatoes and slurp tasty greens.
The next day crowds gathered in open meadows and large pigs squealed as sharp arrows pierced their hearts. They ran, fell, slowly bled to death and I watched, sorrowful and fascinated.
Around noon family groups gathered around pig carcasses, butchering and cleaning. I saw kids my age blowing up pig bladders like balloons and longed to inflate one myself. The sun was hot…we lunched on cheese sandwiches with Mom’s homemade bread. Dad was taking notes on language and customs.
I don’t remember if we napped in the tent in the late afternoon, but in the evening after the tribes had feasted on pit-baked pork, greens, and sweet potatoes, there was dancing. A large circular-roofed hut had been erected on stilts, floored with pliant saplings. Twenty to thirty natives at a time would leap in unison on this floor singing joyous refrains…a giant pinwheel of people moving counter-clockwise.
It was fun! I entered the happy throng and danced with them. Round and round among the dark figures I circled, our large trampoline bouncing us high on the dance floor. I sang with joy!
Finally Dad led Ro and me back to our tent. Tucking us in for the night he asked, “Are you enjoying the ugwai? That’s what the Wolanis call this dance floor. The Monis don’t have them.
“Yes!” I answered. “It’s so much fun! The Monis should have ugwais like this.“
The next morning we broke camp and were ready to head back to Homejo when commotion broke out. Yelling, shouting, a young girl was being dragged down the trail. She broke loose and ran back to the village to an older couple who seemed to be her parents. She held onto them. Then stronger men tore her loose, and in spite of her parents’ pleadings pulled her again down the trail. “What’s happening?” I queried in Moni to a young Bible school student.
“That girl doesn’t want to marry an old man. She likes someone else. But the elder man has paid for her, and his relatives are taking her to his village.” I watched, horrified. The teenage girl continued to sob and cry out midst the teaming crowd as they yanked her down the trail. Their outcries slowly faded.
Later on the trek home I asked my dad about the incident. “Couldn’t her parents try to get her back? She didn’t want to marry that old man."
“It’s more complicated than that,” he explained. “This old man probably also paid other clan relatives of hers, and they won’t give back the bride price.
I mused on the recent happenings back in Homejo, upstairs in my cozy bed. Exciting trekking, exuberant pig feast, joyous dancing, mingled with the cries of a terrified girl being torn away from her family. Why was this tribal life so strange?
I considered the reason our family had come to Dutch New Guinea (now Papua, Indonesia)—to share the good news of Jesus. The Wolanis didn’t know the Lord yet…many tribal customs were cruel. I fell asleep praying for the teenage girl and her tribe, that they would find Him.
