God’s last stopping place. But what of Nutu?
02 July 2022
“But when they came they hid you in the Book / And said you weren’t from around this place / We searched 'til we had nowhere else to look…”
GREGORY BABLIS
ORO - I wrote this sonnet as I thought about some of the ideas arising from my interviews and other observations while conducting fieldwork amongst the Mengen (or Maenge) people of Jacquinot Bay in East New Britain.
The concept of God was a principle theme of most of my interlocutors. Nutu is one of the central characters in Maenge mythology.
Central in any discussion of their spiritual world was whether this being is foreign to the Mengens.
Or whether “we the people knew Him before they [the missionaries] came”.
Melanesia was the last place within Oceania to be Christianised.
Was it also the last place God visited?
___________
The Selenelion
A sonnet by Gregory Bablis
We the people knew Him before they came
His art and beauty we saw every day
We imbued Him into our hausboi's frame
Gardens grow not least 'cause to Him we pray
Bountiful harvests are a normal trend
Many fish we get from around the bay
You'd think the seafood buffet wouldn't end
We call - and tuna come at no delay
But when they came they hid you in the Book
And said you weren’t from around this place
We searched 'til we had nowhere else to look
Far away we fell from your saving grace
Still every day you watch us from the sky
When celestial bodies perch up on high.
"Simple personal ethics and morality - something many forms of religion lack", are elements of religion, but I don't think it works out that way because of human nature, hedonism is too easy.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 05 July 2022 at 06:45 AM
"The real problem is what will take the place of Christianity in the lives of the so called non-religious, because it won't be nothing."
Simple personal ethics and morality - something many forms of religion lack.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 04 July 2022 at 02:09 PM
Religion is not the problem, nor does it matter whether you identify as religious or not (that's infantile) and neither will religion end as a basic facet of human existence.
Heathens aren't a problem, that's just a false identifier used by Christians. The real problem is what will take the place of Christianity in the lives of the so called non-religious, because it won't be nothing.
Of course PNG societies had some form of religion before Christianity.
Undoubtedly, Christianity has its share of bad history but as a world religion, it certainly does appear to have been a better deal, all things considered.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 04 July 2022 at 11:35 AM
So, "fewer people identify as religious", said in: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/toowoomba-residents-shun-religion-2021-census/101199974
Quest is for all humanity, with knowledge as yet unproven. By that word 'unproven', it is of science that theory holds until proved lesser by newer findings.
Except that some bounds and bindings are adhered to reverently, rigorously, even rigidly.
Yet is Quest of 'religious'? Or is a sense and yearning of wonderment impaired by "de rigor".
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 03 July 2022 at 11:26 AM
Yes, a fascinating question to put into sonnet.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 02 July 2022 at 08:56 PM