Call me Joseph, Not Kurai

PEOPLE

By DANIEL KUMBON
CALL me Joseph. I am not Kurai anymore. Joseph Kurai Tapus said this to his friends, associates and anybody he met soon after Fr Peter Granegger baptised him at Sari Catholic Mission on April 8, 1977.
Not many Christian converts are known to have done that but Kurai made public announcements of his conversion and subsequent name change.
Early one morning he asked Michael Maki, a good public speaker to accompany him to Wabag town solely to tell people of his new status.
Kaiap village court chairman, Henry Yapis says Kurai decided to get baptised after he had tirelessly supported the Australian colonial government all his life. Now he wanted to spend the rest of his life helping the church. He was getting old too.
Kurai in his capacity as ‘bosboi’ had supervised the construction of many roads. They used wooden digging sticks to build the Yampu to Londol, Par to Meraimanda, Sopas to Kepsanta, Wabag to Sirunki and Sari to Paimanda road on which he and Michael Maki were now travelling on to tell people of his conversion.
Thomas Tamui, an elder from Kaiap village remembers how Kurai organised the clans who lived along the ridge top to bring firewood, particularly the type of wood called ‘waiyu’ to barter for salt, axes and other trade goods.
‘Kurai would ask men from the Bui, Malye, Mune, Sangu and Kalpoe clans to bring the firewood and assemble at Kaiap village before they marched down to Wabag patrol post. He made sure they all brought leaves from the ‘yakait ita’ or tokak tree to make salt parcels,’ Thomas recalled.
‘They sang songs and yodeled down the slope to Wabag in the morning and happily returned with parcels of salt. When it rained the men used raincaps called ‘tuli’ made from young pandanus nut tree leaves to protect themselves. They walked up the hill in quickened steps to reach home before nightfall with their precious salt carefully tucked in their ‘bilums’ or string bags.’
Kurai organised the construction of a local hospital at Kaiap which was staffed by an aid post orderly who was Uncle Pii, one of the Neneo tribal war refugees.
Men from as far as Londol and Meraimanda in Kompiam brought firewood and building materials for the hospital patients to keep warm at night and to build a new ‘nai anda’ or modern kunai house for Kurai.
Many a man came to Kaiap daily and Kurai ensured there was order in the community. He assigned people to keep adequate supplies of firewood in the hospital. He also organised work gangs to cut down ‘tatto’ or giant hardwood trees which grew in abundance on the ridge.
When Kurai wanted to visit certain groups of people in the locality, he would engage a man named Lyaimbyokon to yodel from the ridgetop to announce his schedules. People waited promptly to receive their ‘bosboi’ and hear him speak.
“In those days local leaders used to rub ‘kanaparo molopai anga itana singi’ or lizards that live on pandanus nut trees on their faces. They believed this would make them look fearsome and take on the form of a lizard’s face. They took advantage of the fear factor to get work done.
‘Kurai appeared frightening indeed but he was really a kind man. But yet when he wanted to get work done, he had to enforce the rules with brute force. With help from the policemen he ensured people promptly followed government rules and instructions. He punished those who defied orders, starting with his own people,’ says Henry Yapis.
As a child, Yapis saw Kurai imprison the Kamainwan people for two weeks when they refused to participate at the first Mt Hagen Show in 1963. Then he ordered them to stage a ‘mali’ or singsing at Kaiap village lest they forgot how to perform when the next show came around.
‘Kurai beat lazy people with his ‘kanda kunja’ or cane, forced man to carry their own wives in public if he saw them beat them unnecessarily or poured hot water on trouble makers until they changed their attitudes,’ Yapis recalled.
He also encouraged people to live in peace, respect authority and love one another. He worked really hard to bring change to Wabag.
Finally, Kurai realised it was time for him to make an important decision in his life. He decided to get baptised at Sari Catholic Mission.
Kurai saw that the laws of government and teachings of the church were similar to traditional rules of conduct so familiar to him.
Do not steal, do not covet someone else’s wife, respect the elderly, leave other people’s property alone etc., were the same sort of rules young men received from elders in the men’s house.
His own Neneo people had paid the ultimate price to suffer defeat. They lost their village for the ‘sins’ of a few individuals who broke traditional rules established by their forefathers.
Finally, there came a time when he was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to prepare for the next life. He seemed to sense his allotted time on earth would soon expire.
‘Not many people heard or saw me get baptised. People must know of my conversion to Christianity. Tell them my new name is Joseph. I am not Kurai anymore,’ he instructed Michael Yapis to announce to people that morning.
By dusk, Michael was worn out from repeating the same message all day long. But Joseph Kurai kept buying more soft drinks to clear his throat to talk to more people from Wapenamanda, Laiagam, Kandep and other parts of Enga.
His motive was obviously to influence people to also change their lives. He had served the government with dignity, power and influence. Many people knew him. But he wished they understood that all human beings perished. They did not take their power, fame or wealth to the grave.
Many elders from Kaiap were convinced Joseph Kurai Tapus was no ordinary man. He had started offering pig sacrifices to a kind spirit named ‘Gote’ who lived in the sky before the missionaries came.
It was common to appease dead relatives when people fell ill but Kurai made the offerings for no apparent reason. Nobody knew why or who directed him to offer the burnt offerings. Maybe he wanted to have children. (New information has emerged that Kurai’s very first wife had died without giving him any children.)
Kurai then selected Tukim, Pingeta’s daughter and recognised her as his first wife. Immediately after that, he married Mathew Kandamaine’s mother but she also died while giving birth to her second son, Andrew.
Mathew says it was during this sad period that his father started to offer pig sacrifices to ‘Gote’ at a place called Kendemale near Kainakungus, the place they had first settled after their village was destroyed.
‘This is how my father prepared the burnt offerings’ Mathew said. ‘First, he made a raised platform on top of the branches of trees. Split wood was fastened to form a table. He placed clay on top to make a firm base to collect the ashes and pig fat.’
Then Kurai lit a fire using very dry wood and burnt the kidneys of a freshly slaughtered pig until every bit was consumed by the flames. This was the sacrifice. The rest of the pig was cooked in a separate mumu pit and strictly shared among the menfolk. He offered separate sacrifices too on behalf of the womenfolk.
Later when they moved further up the ridge to Aeioptenges, Kurai is said to have been in contact with supernatural beings early in the mornings when everybody else was fast asleep in the ‘akalyanda’ or men’s house.
Mathew Kurai and a few other youths witnessed Kurai’s nocturnal activities. Nobody saw him leave but he always entered through the low door of the men’s house after his strange encounters.
One day at about 3am in the morning Mathew heard his father talk to somebody. He went outside to investigate. He saw a bright light beamed directly at Kurai like a torch or the headlights of a car. No one was with him nor did he see the source of light.
I heard a voice come from the end of the source of light. I didn’t see anyone but my father kept answering ‘yes, yes, yes’ to the voice. In what language the communication took place, I cannot say,’ Mathew recalls.
‘When the light was put off, I went back inside the hausman and pretended to sleep as if I had seen or heard nothing. But my father had seen me. He told me not to tell anybody until after he died. I think it’s okay now to talk about it.’
From then on Kurai started to prophesy about things that would happen in the near future.
Kurai had accurately predicted that white men would bring cars, aeroplanes and other new things. Everything that people used for free like kunai grass, pitpit, spring water, food crops, firewood and other such everyday necessities would cost money.
Along the roads people would see rows and rows of people selling sizzling meats and other good things to eat. Their children would cry to have them. People had to work really hard to earn the means to stop their children from crying.
At about this time, Kurai was appointed a tultul. A man named Yoponda Kepa had identified him and convinced the kiap to appoint Kurai as a tultul. These two men knew each other through the traditional ‘tee’ or trade exchange system that flourished in the valley.
Kurai was possibly appointed during the time when John Clarke established Wabag patrol post in 1941 or when it was reopened after the war in 1944.
In 1947 Kurai saw missionaries arrive in Wabag. Lutheran missionaries established themselves at Irelya, Seventh Day Adventists at Rakamanda and a lone Catholic priest came closer to Kopen and settled among Nemane clansmen.
That priest was Gerardus Alfonsus Maria, better known by Enga people as Fr Jerry Bus.
Kurai saw Fr Jerry Bus relocate to Sari because there was inadequate water supply at Kopen.
About 30 years later Kurai was baptised by another SVD priest, Fr Peter Granegger from Austria.
On the very spot where Fr Jerry Bus first settled, one of Joseph Kurai’s sons, Councilor Paul Kurai is building a chapel in collaboration with local priest Fr Justine Ain and Dominic Lawton the principal of Kopen Secondary School, to commemorate the priest’s arrival 73 years ago.

• Daniel Kumbon is a freelance writer.