People of a different nature

By KEVIN PAMBA
FOLLOWING on from last week’s article, today we trace the first contact accounts of pioneer Catholic and Lutheran missionaries about the people of the greater Ialibu region spread across the Imbonggu and Ialibu-Pangia electorates in the eastern end of Southern Highlands.
The first contact impressions provide a glimpse of why it was easy for the people to abandon tribal fighting as urged by the pioneer kiaps (Australian government patrol officers) and missionaries over 60 years ago.
When World War II broke out in 1939 the Australian government terminated
exploration work by the kiaps beyond Mt Hagen where colonial administration and missionary work had begun following the arrivals of the two Leahy brothers and Jim Taylor from Lae and Catholic missionary Fr William Ross SVD from Madang in the early 1930s.
Canberra made the decision to allow its public servants to concentrate on the war. Therefore areas northwest (present Enga)and southwest (present SHP and Hela)of Mt Hagen were restricted from outsiders and the local people continued to live in their tumbuna (traditional) ways including engaging in pitted tribal warfare.
When Australia lifted the restriction after the War ended in 1945, government patrols resumed and new stations were opened.
Catholics were the first missionaries to arrive in central Ialibu in 1955 which was three years after the government patrol team arrived in the area and built Ialibu government station and airstrip. The Lutherans followed soon after.
Gerald Bustin Snr the founder of the American-based Evangelical Bible Mission or EBM (later localized as the PNG Bible Church in 1976) evangelized the Ialibu people starting at the Kauapena end from their pioneer PNG base at Pabrabuk (traditionally Paparapugl) on the Western Highlands side of the Kaugel River around the same time.
Pastor Jacob Sode and wife Sophia from Denmark followed with their Gospel Tidings Mission and set up base at Topopugl village east of Ialibu station near the foot of Mt Ialibu.
The Catholic Church’s headquarters for the Papua region on Yule Island in Bereina, Central District (as it was called then) decided to carry on its evangelization work into the unknown hinterlands of the Southern Highlands District which was part of its mission territory.
The Yule Island-based French Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (or MSC) sent two of their missionaries Fr Alex Michelod MSC and Br Jean Delabarre MSC to the Southern Highlands and they arrived in Mendi by plane on the 09th of September, 1954.
After their exploratory work in Mendi and Tari areas, they sent reports back to their superiors and more MSC missionaries arrived and one of them was Frenchman Fr Alphonse Rinn MSC. Fr Rinn initially stayed in Mendi for seven months and was later sent to Ialibu to do exploratory work for the possibility of starting mission work there.
Fr Rinn visited Ialibu in May 1955 and held the first-ever mass there at the government station’s prison compound on the 29thof May.
He wrote in a report to his superior Bishop Andre Sorin MSC on Yule Island (translated into Tok Pisin by the Diocese of Mendi) that: “Ol manmeri i amamas long mi kam na bringim Katolik Misin long Ialibu. I no gat narapela sios i stap long hia na Katolik Sios i kam pas. Gavman i bin opim rot long mipela i ken i kam na wokim misin tesin long hia.”(The people of Ialibu were pleased with my arrival and bringing the Catholic faith to Ialibu. There is no other church here and Catholic is the first one here. The government has made way for us to come and establish a mission station here).
An account by American Franciscan Capuchin friar, Fr Gary Stakem OFM Cap who arrived in SHP in 1956 reads: “In August (1955) Fr. Louis Van Campenhoudt arrived in Mendi. This enabled Fr Rinn, who had been there for seven months, to visit Ialibu — an attractive area to the east bounded by the majestic mountains named Giluwe at 14,000 ft. and Ialibu at 11,000 ft.- to investigate the possibility of opening a mission post.
Everything was favorable. Shortly after that Brothers Felix (Walaba) and Paul (Idomaka) members of the Oblates of St. Joseph, a local community founded years earlier by Archbishop Alain de Boismenu, arrived from Yule Island. Fr. Rinn sent them to Ialibu to start building a station. With three small mission stations established (in Mendi, Tari and Ialibu), the groundwork was prepared for the Capuchins (from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA who took over from the MSCs in SHP).”
Bishop Sorin visited the Southern Highlands beginning with Ialibu on 13th July 1955 to see the mission work and was captivated by the nature of the indigenous population there.
What Bishop Sorin noticed in the people of Ialibu was undoubtedly why it was easy for them to abandon tribal fighting almost immediately and never looked back to it for the next 60 plus years and counting.
The Diocese of Mendi translated Bishop Sorin’s view of the Ialibu people into Tok Pisin this way:
“Ol manmeri bilong Ialibu i save sindaun gut. Em i moa isi long autim Gutnius bilong Jisas long ol, moa long ol manmeri bilong Mendi na Tari we pasin bilong pait na bekim i stap strong tumas.” (The people of Ialibu are peaceful. It is easier to spread the Gospel of Jesus to them than the people of Mendi and Tari where tribal fights and the culture of payback attacks are still strong).
Following the visit by Bishop Sorin, the first American Catholic missionary from the Franciscan Capuchin Order (OFM Cap) based in Pennsylvania to arrive in the Southern Highlands, Father Otmar Gallagher OFM Cap went to Ialibu on December 7th 1955. Fr Otmar, as the superior (head) of the newly assigned Capuchin missionaries to Southern Highlands, went there to see the new church that the they were going to take over from the MSCs and wrote a glowing account of the Ialibu people’s character.
Fr Otmar’s report translated into Tok Pisin reads: “Ialibu i gutpela ples stret. Katolik misin i bin kam pas long ol arapela misin na ol manmeri i save laikim tru Pata Rin. Mi lukim dispela na em i samting tru. Ol manmeri bilong Ialibu i gutpela na we ol i soim laik long mipela i winim ol arapela ples mi lukim long en. Mipela i kam taim ol i welkamim mipela olsem sampela man ol i save long ol longpela taim tru. Na ol i no laikim mipela i lusim ol gen.Mipela i tokim ol, bihain long Krismas mipela bai salim wanpela pata bilong ol yet.”
(Ialibu is a really nice place. The Catholic mission was the first to arrive than the other churches and the local people liked Father [Alphonse] Rin.I saw the reaction of the Ialibu people and considered it to be something special. The people of Ialibu are good and the way they demonstrated their appreciation for us was much better than other places I have been to. When we arrived in Ialibu, the people welcomed us as if they have known us before. And they did not want to us to leave them. We told them, we will send you a parish priest after Christmas.) American Capuchin friar Fr Henry Kusnerik OFM Cap (who along with Fr Otmar was among the first five US Capuchins sent to Southern Highlands) was assigned to Ialibu and took over from Fr Rin in 1956. Fr Henry is known as a tough man who worked hard to evangelise Ialibu communities in both the Imbonggu and Ialibu-Pangia electorates and is credited for opening up village churches and outstations in various communities such as Kapiepugl (Kendagl), Kero, Kapolapopilge, Komakugl, Orei,Tukupangi, Aropa and Muli.
Pioneer Lutheran missionary couple to Ialibu, Claire and Len Tscharke was also awed by the nature of the indigenous people like Bishop Sorin and Fr Otmar were. The Tscharkes’ arrived in Ialibu in 1956 and started their work of evangelisation. They recounted the following in their 2011 book “Dawning of a New Day”:
“Through Government intervention, tribal warfare had by now been reduced to almost zero.”
“According to all the reports we had received, Ialibu had not been nearly as difficult as some other new areas where Patrol Officers had sometimes faced stern opposition.”
“Here the people had responded quickly to the new order and in many ways they appeared to be already thankful that the big change had come to them.”
“The Ialibus were clearly a people of a different temperament when compared to other Highlands people who we had met.”
“They were more docile – not nearly as volatile as the Simbus and certainly much less so than the Hagens.”
“We admired this quality of theirs because it made them a fine a people to live with,” the Tscharkes wrote.
The pioneer missionaries and the kiaps left a profound imprint on the people of Ialibu that they first encountered as much as they were awed by the “more docile” nature of the Ialibus.
The newer generation of Ialibus growing up especially in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s could hear their relatives who met the first missionaries and kiaps say things that symbolized their respect and reverence for the truce they reached to refrain from tribal fighting and other traditional activities deemed unlawful.
Those elders would begin their conversations during disputes, for example, in the Imbonggu language with the phrase “Misi Mano olgi walgi” meaning it is the time of the arrival of the Gospel or literary arrival of Lutherans (Misi) and Catholics (Mano) and times have changed.
They would also say “Kondoigl Keapo olgi walgi” which means it is the time of the arrival of the white man (Kondoigl) Kiap (Keapo). These elders were acknowledging the new era of enlightenment they had welcomed in the mid-1950s therefore they could not break the lawor go against the Gospel of Jesus Christ and revert to tribal warfare etc. Looking back from today, the elders’ notions of Misi Mano olgi walgi and Kondoigl Keapo olgi walgi were profound statements of reverence and respect for the Word of God and the rule of modern law and authority of government.
The challenge is on the present and future generations of Ialibus in the two electorates to uphold the desire of the forefathers to live in peace and harmony in the enlightened era of the Misi Mano and Kondoigl Keapo.