‘Now we know shame’: Malu and Stigma among Highlanders in the Papuan Diaspora

Abstract

a 30-year-old university student from the highlands of Papua proclaimed that, 'Our elders used to wear just the penis sheath [koteka] and did not feel ashamed, but now, now we know the feeling of shame [malu]', he articulated a central problematic I had encountered during my fieldwork. Prior to colonialism and Christianity, Dani societies clearly knew shame in their own ways (Alua 2006; Heider 1979). Penggu's comment can be partially understood in relation to Indonesian state interventions aimed at eliminating highlander men's practice of wearing the koteka in the name of modernisation, and missionaries' concerns about the moral implications of near-nudity. 2 Yet among young people with whom I lived in North Sulawesi and Papua, assertions that Dani people now experience themselves as malu, the Indonesian term for embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed, or shy, in a host of novel contexts and encounters held sway even as it contrasted sharply with their private behaviour and usual confidence among Papuan highlanders.