Today funerals are highly competitive big business in the Highlands Provinces.

Most graves nowadays have a 'house' built over them, complete with tiled floors and curtained glass louvre windows and night lamps.

It's a kind of death cult and I hope the churches are aware of it. But then again Christian denominations are most likely profiting from this new trend because someone has to go bless the grave.

There are shrines built on many graves of the dubious big men that match the war memorials to fallen soldiers and great leaders of the world.

These mausoleums are usually built on prime real estate, which is pleasant for the occupants I'm sure.

Meanwhile the villagers eat grass and ask for government hand outs from their local MP who can't understand why he has to give the family more money after he'd already contributed to burying the bastard that he knew.

The simple act of entering a haus krai now comes with the expectation of a cash donation. At many haus krai's the gate fee is above K50.

Anything less than that and you're liable to end up a laughing stock or at the very least be frowned upon as a 'poorer' relative.

There is too much waste in contemporary PNG society.

I made mention of this in my recent book ‘I Can See My Country Clearly Now’ in reference to a missionary from Europe who came to Enga Province in the early 1960s who still maintains a full healthy lifestyle at about age 83 thanks to his children contributing towards paying for heart surgery at a well-equipped hospital in Australia.

Sample these few lines from my mentioned book.

“Alois has had the good fortune to live a full life. He understood the essence of life and looked after his health well.

And when he needed their help most, his children and other relatives paid for his medical bills and added more valuable years to his precious life."

Nowadays in Enga Province, a long line of cars of all descriptions travel in convoys with their horns and sirens blaring escorting bodies of loved ones home for burial as inquisitive by-standers whisper to each other to find out whose body it is that is being taken home for burial.

At the haus krai tons of food and drinks - cartons of lamb flaps, coke, cooking oil, bags of rice, cartoons of fish, noodles, sugarcane and bags of sweet potatoes are heaped up by friends and relatives.

Heaps of cash amounting to thousands of kina are also contributed as a sign of their ‘last respects.’

It was customary to give in times of need but isn’t this exercise more time consuming and costly than the medical bill the deceased would have desperately needed to prolong his or her life at a well-equipped hospital?’

If you take the bride price and other customary practices to the extreme level, then it becomes a burden.

But such cultural practices are "communal" meaning that they bring all families and friends together to pool and share resources. Not one person bears the burden in all of these.

In the absence of a national or social safety net, families and friends have found solace, comfort and strength in some of our communal ways of looking after one another.

Still Sam Koim has a point. We need to re-look at some of our excessive and expensive practices.

But we have unique cultural and customary practices that if blended with modern and observed in moderation can strengthen our society.

Lets be careful not to throw the bay out with the water!!

Sam Koim should rethink what he has said and be more specific, he should have stated that the Politicization of our culture by Politicians and those who have become bikman by Money mostly those highly western educated ones who go back to the village to flaunt their wealth in order to buy support and recognition which is a total abuse of these customary systems itself.

I am stating these as someone who comes from a simple background and who was privileged to have witnessed and experience the benefits of these customary practices like haus krais, bride price ceremonies and the benefits that it has on the society. Papua New Guineans mostly living in the rural areas are self reliant, they rely on themselves and their family extended families in times of need to see them through hard times.

Thus it is important to show your face, make a contribution in any customary ceremony whether it be a death, a bride price payment or a customary reconciliation ceremonies. If they or someone does not contribute in one way or the other no one is going to help you when you face problems, the government will definitely not help. Its a way of life for most simple Papua New Guineans.

I am not sure if most Westerners or Western influenced Papua New Guineans will understand these or see its importance until you actually live in a traditional village Society. I mean traditionally our Melanesian way of life is never about getting rich or wealth generation it has more to do with maintaining family ties and looking after each other. An illustration of one such custom and the positive impacts in our society is captured by Arnold Mundua in his book "A brides Price".

Absolutely, we need to eradicate them and see it as an historic relics and adopt the saving culture for the good of individual and the nation as a whole.