Wanbel for accusations of sorcery

last edited May 13, 2024, 3 p.m. by Steve

5-10 Rituals & Ceremonies

Participants

Date Team participants National participants
May 7, 2024 Steve Kokoma + all other villages

Description

When Kokoma buried Nambi they were angry and thought that sorcery had done it. They accused people of sorcery and said that they wanted to beat them to death. The rumour of this talk went out, but they didn't confess it. They said they were wanbel about Nambi's death at a meeting in January, but this was a lie. 5 months later they arranged a wanbel which included all 7 Kovol villages, confessed their wrong and gave meat.

The Ingis komiti hosted the meeting because he was educated and could read and write. He wrote out a list of individuals on a "special list" who got an apology and piece of meat. There was a list of the clans of Kokoma, Ingis, Pusila and Tolookum and they all got meat and finally the leaders got meat.

As the name was called the person came up and Ulumo, Jebeli and another guy gave them a chunk of meat and 2 roots, and shook hands. Ulumo spoke words quietly that seemed to be a formula for an apology.

Following the meeting the leaders took turns giving exhortations in a mix of Tok Pisin and Tok ples to leave the hevi behind now and to respect the 3 houses (our missionary houses). People needed to leave behind bad behaviour, do good, and go along with the missionaries.

Texts

Sorcery wanbel meeting
last edited May 13, 2024, 3 p.m. by Steve

    Speaker: Ingis komiti

Exhortation following
last edited May 13, 2024, 3 p.m. by Steve

    Speaker: Ebesil komiti

Semik - Why I was on the special list
last edited May 13, 2024, 3 p.m. by Steve

Orthographic text

(Ulumo said a bad thing to me, so I was on the special list for a direct apology)