The widow would freely decide if she wanted to marry again or continue to live on her own to raise her children (and repay any debts incurred by her husband, including those associated with the funeral).

In the village, children were told that each human had an inevitable opportunity for birth and also one for death and both events must be observed diligently and with reverence.

Anyways, I’m long out of the village. The Morata settlement in Port Moresby has been my home for the last 28 years. I went there straight out of theological college.

It has been both a good and bad experience living in this melting pot, ploughing through life to make ends meet.

There are still diverse experiences for various occasions such as bride price rituals, compensation payments, provincial days and many traditional rites.

Of all of these, though, it’s the haus krai [mourning place] that presents a paradox that needs expounding.

Some people who migrated here from villages, squatting on whatever land they found in a settlement, had, through their own tireless efforts, built decent homes and profitable businesses.

However, a problem arises when one of these successful men dies. As is customary, his tribesmen inundate his home and establish the haus krai.

Relatives and friends visit the haus krai in numbers with money and food to contribute and mourning to share.

Usually, most relatives do not visit a sick man in hospital, but when he is dead, relatives covered in mud swiftly appear at the dead man’s home, and the mourning shed is erected.

An enlarged photo of the dead man is laminated and framed to sit on the frame on the table in the haus krai.

Usually five men sit behind the table 10 each evening to receive cash and kind from the mourners, who usually include sitting MPs and intending political candidates.

The haus krai facilitators announce the man’s death in social media saying they welcome cash and kind from friends and relatives.

Normally, the mob at the table who facilitate the haus krai are unemployed. They’re unlike the working class, who have no time to talk deep into the night. With jobs to go to early in the morning, they come in to contribute and exit after an hour or so.

Some people are obsessed with embellishing their names, so they happily come to contribute resources and make grand speeches that inflate their egos. But they don’t necessarily show much grief or empathy.

Others come to contribute cash and kind knowing that this is a business transaction. If they experience a death in their family, the cash and kind will be reciprocated.

During the haus krai the corpse may spend a month in the morgue. It will be released in a suitable coffin to fly to tribal land for burial when every gift giver the facilitators have counted in their minds eye has turned up and contributed, then the final rites will be chanted and the coffin released.

If by chance, the death occurred in an election campaign, the dead man’s family will make a fortune from candidates eager to show much sympathy, kind and of course cash.

There are also recorded cases in PNG where politicians contributed up to K200,000 and supplied live buffalos and cows to slaughter at the mourning shed.

The salivating mourners and the relatives of the dead will announce, ‘Let the MP own this seat for as long as he wants.’

The intending candidates mostly will not know the deceased but will come with money and resources and be in good voice to cook-up a colourful eulogy about the dead man.

Sadly, this has become a new election gimmick used to secure votes. The accolades about the dead man’s character, which are mainly exaggerated and far from genuine and factual, dilute the true meaning of mourning.  

Regrettably, in this business enterprise, the widow and her children’s welfare are given little consideration.

The unemployed facilitators of the mourning shed, who are now Lords of the Cash, decide on how the money will be distributed. The widow will receive little or none.

For a working-class man, cash contributions can reach K80 000 or thereabouts. An ordinary person’s death can fetch up to K30 000 while politicians or former politicians can reach a million kina.

On occasions where the money collected is swindled by the facilitators, angry relatives will converge and vent their frustrations on the innocent widow and her children.

Sometimes, if her sons are not big enough to defend her, the widow will be chased out into an unforgiving city to fend for herself, even as tribesmen acquire the property of the dead man.

At other times, relatives will come in and freely lodge in the widow’s home and then start selling any item of value found there such as a fridge or car parts.

Sadly, these are some of the undercurrents of contemporary PNG society that is now besieged with remorseless and brutal poverty.

Communal living and taking care of each other is two of the best parts of Melanesian society. But a hybrid haus krai that pushes out the humane and promotes the worst elements of business is a concern.

MPs should not fund a haus krai with many thousands of kina and turn a humane mourning shed of long tradition into a ruthless business enterprise for some self-styled modern-day relatives. 

Anyway, there’s no cultural or economic rationality in dishing out huge sums of money as the dead will not rise again and bring about public good.

And if MPs think they are buying political survival, a one thousand kina contribution is not good enough.

It disrespects our country, our people and our traditions to further torture, a woman grieving over her husband’s death. She should not be deprived of a home and a business she laboured with her husband to establish.

Disrespecting the haus krai, one of the truly worthwhile legacies of our forebears, is to cause our homeland a great deal of unnecessary harm.