| Sports |
Resurrecting a legacy
of yore
People of a remote
Rigo village falls back on their traditional legacy to improve
their lot, reports JACK METTA
HIGH up on a ridge in the Owen
Stanley Ranges sits a village called Gobukomane. It has a
population of about 500 men, women and children.
These are the survivors in the real sense of the word, for their
world is 1,000 feet above sea level and far removed from the city
lights of Port Moresby and the flat plains of Sogeri on the
western side and the coastal regions to the south.
Situated about 100km northeast of Kwikila Station on the border of
Oro and Central provinces, Gobukomane is accessible by a dirt road
but not by any other vehicle — you need a four-wheel drive.
If the Southern Highlanders are the last Papuans to Papua, then
the Gobukomane villagers are the last Centrals to the Central
province, for this is where people of Central province appearances
end in the mountains.
To get there, you negotiate your way through at least four
mountains and if you’re new to the area and driving, it would be
advisable to keep your eyes glued on the road or more precisely,
the bush track, for like many roads throughout the country today,
lack of funds and Government neglect have reduced these important
lifelines to bush tracks and bush lands.
The distractions are many, for one is travelling into a time warp
where nature virtually had stood still — the rolling tropical
forests that festoon the backbone of our beloved country stretches
as far as the eyes can see, waterfalls dot the mountain sides
breaking the monotonous greenery with the whiteness of their
waters as if smiling to the visitor and birds of all shapes and
sizes add to the welcome with displays of colour and song.
The headwaters of Kemwelsh River which passes through Kwikila town
starts in this part of the woods.
If the road hadn't been so bad, nobody in his or her right mind
would resist sitting back and relishing the scenery, for it is in
places like this that the visitor’s essence cries out to become
one with nature.
Reaching the village on the ridge, you can't help but stare in awe
at the power and aura that the towering Mt Obree — the second
highest peak in the Central province — to the east, exudes.
It makes you feel so insignificant, yet so great to be alive and
you marvel at the sheer drop of the cliff faces in between and
take a second glance at where you feet are, just to make sure
you’re on solid ground.
You would notice that the villagers make their gardens on one side
of the ridge while the other side just simply cannot be worked on
because of the sheer drop, which had claimed many-a-soccer balls
that had the privilege of being kicked around in the confined
spaces on the ridge from time to time.
For a place as high up as it is, and far removed from the city
lights, you’d think Gobukomane was close to Heaven since
everything else around it attests to a Garden of Eden.
But forces of evil are at work, as they are in almost every other
places one earth.
“Negative lifestyles have seeped into this village,” Pastor Eddie
Diro of the Rhema Faith Church told Rootmettas after a visit to
his village or origin last weekend.
“There had been a saying among the village: ‘The life led by the
coastal people should never come to the mountains’ but it is
happening; has happened.”
He said children as young as 11 were involved in drug abuse, cult
activities, gun-making and brewing of illicit liquor.
“There is no respect for authority anymore,” he said.
Pastor Diro and the village elders have identified the problem as
been rooted in poverty.
“Poverty is a curse of Satan,” he said, explaining that this state
of affairs is triggered by the hardship the villagers face in
coping with the pressures of the society at large.
“The isolation, absences of basic Government services such
clinics, schools and improved road infrastructure, the hardship of
trying to earn an income to pay for school fees and buy things to
make lives more comfortable, to pay bride prices, and a whole lot
of problems caused by circumstances and the elements, are takings
their toll.
“The people are slowly taking their fate for granted and the
values; the legacies that they had held dear for generations are
starting to erode for the worse.”
But as concerned villagers, Pastor Diro, village elders and their
clansmen and women have made it their business not to let the
situation deteriorate further into the abyss of hell.
They have come up with Taninivaga Besena Development Forum — a
group comprising six subclans — which have taken it upon
themselves to pursue four major projects:
l Re-establish the chieftaincy system to help stop the
deteriorating law and order problems and guide both Government and
the church to help improve lives;
l Tap the multi-million kina Okari nut market and open up income
generating opportunities for the people;
l Capture opportunities in the informal sector for the young
unemployed people to generate income; and,
l Help install water supply system/facilities in the village.
“Taninivaga is a traditional term in our Tubulamo dialect, which
means ‘never say die’,” clan chief Tom Goodwin explained.
“It motivated our warriors when they marched off to war. It
instilled courage and a fearless attitude to win wars.
“Today, we must embrace that winning attitude. We must develop a
fearless culture that has faith in God; to move forward and find a
way to bring prosperity to our people and our way of life.
“Poverty is a curse of Satan and it is time for us to step into
the promises of God,” Chief Goodwin says.
The most important undertaking in this venture is the
re-establishment of authority through the Orona Besena — a
chieftaincy system that regulated life at the village level for
generations until the advent of colonisation and Christianity.
“Many of our long-held traditional values were eroded through
these changes but those values can be resurrected though the
establishment of an authority that would command the respect of
one and all,” Pastor Diro, the coordinator of the Taninivaga
Besena Development Forum said.
“It is being effectively practised in Fiji, Vanuatu and the
Trobriand Islands and have withstood the test of time,” Pastor
Diro said, adding, “we see no reason why it should not work again
in our society.”
Indeed Pastor Diro, Chief Goodwin and the concerned people of
Gobukomane have nothing to lose and everything to gain by their
initiative, for in their hearts reverberates Winston Churchill’s
warning about the future generation: “When one generation no
longer esteems its own heritage and fails to pass the torch to its
children, it is saying in essence that the very foundational
principles that make the society what it is are no longer valid.
This leaves that generation without any sense of definition or
direction, making them the fulfillment of Karl Marx’s dictum, ‘A
people without a heritage are easily persuaded’. What is required
when this happens and the society has lost it ways, is for leaders
to arise, who have not forgotten the discarded legacy and who love
it with all their hearts. They can then become the voice of that
lost generation, wooing an errant generation back to the faith of
their fathers, back to the ancient foundations and the bedrock
values …”
Churchill concluded that what holds society together from
generation to generation is those shared values and traditions
that comprise heritage.
“Civilisations can only thrive when the legacy each generation
receives from its ancestors is passed on in strengthened form to
their children ... I do not see much hope for the future unless it
is hope that you are talking bout. We must return to God … that
this generation would recover faith in God and the culture that
faith produces…”
And we are reminded of the Wise Counsellor’s words: “If you’re
doing all right under the circumstances, you could be doing a lot
better under His wings…”
 
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