Perilous Times, Witchcraft and The Occult
Witchcraft brings murder to Pacific paradise*
By Nick Squires in Goroka
Last Updated: 09/02/2007
Once hailed as an untouched Shangri-La, the mist-shrouded highlands of
Papua New Guinea are undergoing a dramatic resurgence in sorcery and
witchcraft.
Age-old beliefs in black magic and evil curses are back with a vengeance
in jungle-clad mountain valleys which were unknown to the outside world
until the 1930s.
Papua New Guinea tribesmen, Witchcraft brings murder to Pacific paradise
Tribesmen resort to old ways and rituals to 'ward off evil spirits',
including the murder and torture of those believed to be witches
Suspected witches 鈥?mostly women but including some men and even
children 鈥?have been subjected to horrific torture before being hanged
or thrown off cliffs.
A growing Aids crisis and the collapse of health services have sapped
villagers' faith in Western medicine and prompted a return to ancestral
beliefs.
Barely educated villagers living in remote mountain valleys are blaming
the increasing number of Aids deaths not on promiscuity or a lack of
condom use but on malign spirits.
When Raphael Kogun's uncle died two years ago, his family blamed a
middle-aged married couple who they were convinced had become possessed
by evil spirits. "We chopped their heads off with an axe and a bush
knife," said the 27-year-old farmer from Goroka, in Eastern Highlands
province.
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"I felt sorry for them but they were witches, they deserved to die. If
they were still alive they could hurt people with their magic. We buried
the bodies but then the police found out and started digging them up."
Two of Kogun's brothers were arrested under the Act of Sorcery
incorporated into PNG's criminal code, but the case collapsed because
witnesses were too afraid to testify. The number of witch killings has
been estimated at 200 a year in the neighbouring province of Simbu
alone, although definitive figures are impossible to come by.
A report by Amnesty International in September found there was a
"conspiracy of silence" surrounding the murders. Belief in evil spirits
is ubiquitous throughout Papua New Guinea, where more than 850 languages
are spoken by 5.5 million people.
In the highlands they are known as "sangumas" and can assume the form
not only of humans, but animals such as dogs, pigs, rats and snakes.
A surge in the illegal growing of marijuana in the emerald green valleys
has contributed to black magic paranoia, experts say.
A patient dying of HIV-Aids in a Papua New Guinea hospital, Witchcraft
brings murder to Pacific paradise
A patient dying of HIV-Aids in a Papua New Guinea hospital. Villagers
blame the deaths on malign spirits
"We're seeing a big rise in witchcraft cases. We hear of a killing
almost every week," said Hermann Spingler, a German Lutheran pastor who
heads the Melanesian Institute, a cultural study centre in Goroka. "They
take the law into their own hands and torture people to make them
'confess'. They drag women on ropes behind vehicles, burn them with hot
wire, chop off hands, fingers. People have been buried alive."
He expects more witch murders as PNG's Aids crisis worsens. The country
has the highest rate of Aids in the Pacific region, with the government
estimating that around two per cent of the population is HIV positive.
That is almost certainly an under-estimate. "The problem is far worse
than the official statistics show. In some ante-natal clinics 30 per
cent of women are positive," said Claire Campbell, an Australian Aids
campaigner working for the World Health Organisation.
"It's only 75 years since the first white man walked over the hills,"
said Mal Smith-Kela, PNG's only white provincial governor.
"I've flown into villages where they tried to work out what sex the
helicopter was by looking at the exhaust pipes." Last month police in
Goroka uncovered the grisly killings of four women accused by villagers
of using sorcery to cause a fatal road crash.
After being tortured with hot metal rods and made to confess, they were
murdered and buried upright in a pit.
"The villagers believe they have to kill the 'witches', otherwise the
whole clan is at risk from black magic," said Jack Urame, 38, a member
of the Dom tribe who has researched sorcery killings for the Melanesian
Institute.
"What is disturbing is that children are witnessing these things 鈥?the
belief in sorcery and witchcraft is being passed on to the next
generation." Yes. Based on personal experiences - I can tell you that evil spirits can look like humans, dogs, pigs, rats and snakes? People that are possessed can look like other people that once lived. Evil spirits can look like humans and animals in ghostly form - This means the humans or animals are transparent. Evil spirits have the ability to produce nontransparent and transparent images.
Note: I have good reason to believe some people are being forced to allow themselves to be possessed by evil spirits.
Note: I saw five points that appeared to be an upside down 鈥淪hield of David鈥?in a man鈥檚 eyes. Just imagine a 鈥淪hield of David鈥?without the uppermost point. The points looked like distant stars in the night sky. The left side three points aligned like the alignment of stars in Orion鈥檚 Belt.
Check out my question "Do you think the birth of the Red Heifers born in the 1990's is proof that the Messiah is coming soon?" Read my comment section. See link: http://web.ncf.ca/fd810/
Note: Not all Witches are devil worshippers. Some people with supernatural powers are here to help.
Witch hunts = persecution
Persecution = satanism
Satanism = terrorism
Terrorism = war
Note: The devil is behind all of the religious persecutions and wars taking place around the world. Some Pagans are God's people so they are also being persecuted. "Last Updated: 09/02/2007"??? I have several friends from PNG who are studying with me in Bible College. All this is news to me. I'll check it out and get back to you. It's probably a load of biased crap from a christian website. You also forget that the Medieval christians did the same thing, but they also killed suspected vampires, werewolves,innocent midwives, astronomers, early chemists, and many, many others. Neither witchcraft or the occult are to blame here. This is an example of the ignorance and stupidity of the human race. Witchcraft is neither white nor black but neutral and may be used in any way the practicer desires. Just one more episode of men unjustly judging, persecuting, and punishing with uneducated and blind beliefs.
In all honesty, if someone were torturing you with hot metal rods and telling you it would stop if you confessed to practising witchcraft, would you say you did, even if you didn't?
As a Wiccan that practices magically, I see that it is a shame that people still undergo such travesty in such modern times.
As for the beliefs being passed on to the next generation, such has been the way of things all over the world since the beginning of time.
AIDS, as we in the educated and enlightened parts of the world, is a bloodborne disease easily passed through fluid transmission from one person to the other. There is nothing magical or evil in this terrible disease. I personally believe that many of the world's most horrible diseases are the Earth's revenge against the invasion and destruction caused by the human race. If I chose to use my car as a tool for murder I could go out and drive over innocent civilians. So too i can choose to use 'magick' as a tool to destroy or a tool to create. I think most people are just scared because they have no idea what it is. Most of what is written about Witchcraft and the Occult (by outsiders) are fiction and superstitions. People just make stuff up to gossip and start rumors. Really superstitious the humans we are... |
