Gahuku-Gama - Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Traditionally, Gahuku possessed no systematic cosmology. They believed in no gods, and few demons or other malignant spirits inhabited their world. On the other hand, an impersonal supernatural force was tapped through ritual, especially through the deployment of sacred flutes that, when blown, united men with each other and their ancestors, endowing them with powers of growth and fertility. While Lutheran missionaries have settled in the area since the 1930s, their progress in converting the Gahuku to Christianity was slow until recent years.

Religious Practitioners. No formal priesthood existed, with major roles in rituals and ceremonies allocated simply to elders who were viewed as repositories of the requisite knowledge.

Ceremonies. Annually, during the dry season, male initiation ceremonies were held over a period of months, inducting groups of agemates into the nama cult of the men's house. These rites typically concluded with a pig festival also lasting several months, during which group obligations (e.g., to allies) were discharged through gifts of pigs and pork. Less regularly, perhaps every three to five years, a fertility rite was conducted to stimulate the growth of crops and both pig and human populations. Nowadays, Christian holidays, such as Christmas, are occasions for public festivals.

Arts. Like other New Guinea highlanders, Gahuku confine their artistic production almost totally to body decoration and ornamentation for ceremonies, festivals, and courtship.

Medicine. Bush medicines and purification techniques were traditionally employed on a self-help basis, but increasingly nowadays Western medical facilities are used.

Death and Afterlife. All deaths, whatever their apparent proximate causes, were attributed to sorcery, with women viewed as the principal accomplices, if not actual agents. A "breath-soul" animating principle was believed simply to depart at death, leaving behind only a shade, which usually showed no interest in the living. Until the introduction of Christianity, no belief in an afterworld existed for the Gahuku.