Belief in Melanesia

Abstract

The Eipo, a Papuan group in the highlands of West-New Guinea, had a neolithic tool kit and an animistic religion when they were first studied in the 1970s. They believed that there were close links between one’s health (and disease) and one’s behavior in society, particularly, that wrongdoing causes mishap, sickness and death. Thereby, Eipo religion was not only linked to wellbeing and health, but there was, furthermore, a juncture between the extrahuman powers (isa, i.e. souls of the dead, spirits of creator “gods”, of nature etc., who were thought to interfere in the lives of people) and the primordial juridicial system of the Eipo protecting the social system with its canon of conduct. Persons who committed a breach of sacrosanct norms were, so the unshakable belief, punished by one of the isa powers whose main function was the safeguarding of social rules and the perpetuation of society and cosmos. The Eipo were also convinced that disease and death had no natural cause (except for people dying of old age) but were always the consequence of interference by isa. Healing was, thus, a religious domain and faith a very powerful companion of all therapeutic settings. This has repercussions for our own society, where modern medical and psychological science only slowly grasps the full impact of placebo and halo effects which are important adjuvants of medical intervention. In a similar vein, religion can contribute to stress reduction – a classic function of belief systems in pre-scientific cultures like that of the Eipo, but also relevant for industrialised societies. The Eipo accepted Christianity around 1980, a consequence of more political than transcendental concern. It is quite striking, how smooth this change from animism to monotheism has been so far and that the new religion has helped them, in many ways, to cope with the abrupt process of acculturation.