A symbol of friendship

COVER STORY

By Dr ANDREW MOUTU
THE breaking of the spear signifies a special bond of friendship between Australia and Papua New Guinea.
The occasion which prompted this ceremonial gesture was the opening of the Papua New Guinea House in Sydney in July 1974.
As supplied by the Australian Information Service, this symbolic gesture is being watched on by Albert Maori Kiki, the Australian Senator Don Willesee and three Mekeo dancers who went to Sydney to grace the occasion when the Papua New Guinea House was opened.
This was the period of self-government, when the Late Grand Chief was the Chief Minister, some 13 months before PNG gained political independence from Australia in September 1975.
This photograph is found in his autobiography, Sana, and forms part of an exposition on the episodic vignettes of regional pressures, especially the sentiments of micronationalism, which proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s and were threatening to render asunder the vision for national unity and the political independence of PNG.
These included the tension between the Matangauns, the Warkurai Nigunan and the Warbete Kivung of the Gazelle; Bougainvillean secessionism which was heightened by the killing of two Bougainvilleans, Dr. Luke Robin and Peter Moini in Goroka after a car accident in 1972; the rise of the Kabisawali Movement in the Trobriands; the Papua Besena Movement; and the Papuan Republic Fighters Army of Oro.
Secessionist threats and separatist movements were broiling on the kettle at home when the Chief Minister stomped the floor and stepped onto that podium to open the House in Sydney.
Cognizant of his supporters and naysayers in Australia and PNG, he animated the occasion by breaking that ceremonial spear and presenting the broken pieces to the Australian Prime Minister and a Papuan leader.
As Chief Minister, he was found in between the two halves of the spears emulating the view that, in times of conflict and violence, a spear is always found moving in between different groups of people. Peacemakers are those who go in between people in moments of strife or discord.
Therefore, the gesture of breaking the spear is a symbol of friendship, good will and common accord.
Whenever a spear is handled, it means it has been retrieved from where it has been resting and it is now being put into motion. Because it is handled, it always comes from the sides.
A spear is the ‘mind’, so to speak, appearing in its lateral dexterity. Like an agent with its own persona, the spear is doing something when it is in the hands of a person.
As we see in this photo, the spear is sharp and pointed and comes with several prongs and spikes to help grip, grab or tear up what it touches.
When it takes an aim, it has a lethal ambition in the flight of its direction.
The force of its thrust deals with pockets of resistance in the air as it passes through.
However fast and slow it moves, it will always find a landing ground. Sometimes its landing bears an imprint of devastating consequences or in its hunting forays, it brings home a prey as a trophy.
When a man is in control of a spear and breaks it, that spear stands out as a prior symbol of discord. There is a disquiet and people are unsettled.
As an epitome of discord, the spear that runs across horizontally, points with an unequivocal aim to take down and take out that which is within the reach of its target.
Enmity and discord shroud the spear that travels across horizontally. And often as it seems, the words we throw are as lethal as a spear of discord, they divide and destroy.
Therefore, when a spear is broken, it means that discord is lowered and is replaced with two other kinds of cords: an accord and a concord. A harmonizing chorus of equivalence sinks in and a symphony rises like a crescendo in a triumph of unity and friendship.
As I sat listening to and reflecting on the poetic and lyrical composure of the musicians and students in schools (Passam National High School, Brandi Secondary and Divine Word University) and the choir groups from churches in Wewak that recited poems and sang songs in commemorative tributes to the Late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, I was aware of the tranquil ambiance of the place that evening.
A crowd of people have gathered together in a solemn commemoration.
Clouds have held back for the night, water was in the air and a gentle breeze brushed through that Wewak night.
I was thinking of how this nation came together in its emotional response at this time last year when the Grand Chief had gone home to rest beyond the yonder.
A collective of young Sepik musicians came together in songs of farewell (auwo) that recall the canoe (muntai), the basket (sun) and the spear (yamdar) of his Karau village in the Murik Lakes. In recalling some of his jovial quest for peace, his eldest daughter, Betha Somare, and the organizers of the celebration have inserted into the brochure of the program in Wewak a curious and yet a fecund photographic image of the young Michael Somare as a spear breaker.
The yoke of colonialism, the evils of racism, the presumption of naivety, the challenge of cultural diversity were different kinds of spears pointing at the prospects of a united nation.
That spear ought to be broken. It came into the hands of someone who can break it. Someone who can stand in between a discord and an accord.
Cords connect and mediate and sometimes you do that by a judicious act of breaking and cutting. Imagine a midwife cutting an umbilical cord: it is that cutting that separates and confers a new relationship, a new identity on the child and its mother.
When the spear is broken, it not only lowers the height of discord, in time, it disintegrates and eventually returns back to the soil where its tree came from.
A broken spear inaugurates a future of cordiality. Like cutting that creates the life of child as a progeny, breaking a spear helps to create the conditions for friendship and partnership or a mutuality that allows a diversity of life-forms to flourish. It is in cutting or in breaking that we unleash a life anew, including the life of a nation!

• Dr Andrew Moutu is the Director of the National Museum & Art Gallery