Community, Relationships and Exchange are the three most significant values in a cuturally diverse country such as Papua New Guinea. We keep them dear to our hearts after land and life. Our system is a tradition that lives off extended relationships that survive on exchange within community for our social, economic and spiritual wellbeing. We are a spiders web conjoined by PNG culture for a 'Gutpela Sindaun' for everyone.
Source: Casper Damien
Introduction
What do we mean by culture? Culture is what distinguishes a human from an animal. The animal has instincts which tell it how to answer its needs for survival. Humans have culture to perform the same task. (Apart from human reasoning capacity to do what is right from wrong). Culture is not just a bundle of customs but a system of ideas, an ordered whole, inherited from and shared with a group, through which people are taught how to answer their physical, social, and spiritual needs. What one can see of a culture are the exterior forms, but what gives meaning to those forms are the underlying values. There cannot be true understanding and appreciation of a culture without knowledge of the values system. These three traditional values systems are very important for PNG. The three common traditional value systems are community, relationships, and exchange. These values identify who we are and our existence as Papua New Guineans. The traditional value systems do not exist on their own but exist in unity for purpose. These values point to a way of life that demands (attracts) for peace and harmony in all communities in PNG. A Tok Pisin term expressing all three of these values could be Gutpela sindaun, and it comprises security, health, wealth, growth, prestige, good relationships, meaning, etc. It also implies the lack of sickness, decay, barrenness, death, etc. All other activities, good or bad, are done for better life “Gutpela sindaun” in all PNG communities. Hence, there is a need to explain aspects of some of PNG’s traditional cultural value systems.
1. Community
One of the key values in PNG is the community. The shape and size of the community varies from society to society in PNG, but the group of people which is necessary for biological survival, for emotional support and for meaning is always of the greatest importance for Papua New Guineans. In fact, the community seems to take precedence over individual personal likes and dislikes.
Community is the top value in PNG. But it is more than that, that is, the community was only a way, the only known way to a higher value. That higher value was the mainspring of all the community's activities. One could define it as the sum of everything positive a Papua New Guinean heart desires and the absence of everything a Papua New Guinean heart rejects. We exist because of community. Our life for better life is determined by the community. Community is a powerful entity, when community says or make a decision, it is always final.
2. Relationships
PNG community consists of a web of relationships. The principal factor in these relationships is that of blood, marriage, and land. Furthermore, the relationship to relatives comprises both the living and the dead. Relationships to dead relatives are very important.
Relationships mean much more than simple biological or legal links. They mean rights, duties, expectations and obligations. When Papua New Guineans says “father,” they might or might not mean the person who gave physical life to them, but certainly they do mean the one who has precise obligations to the person called “child,” who has clear expectations for the child, expectations which give physical and emotional security, which give meaning to life. A "brother" is not necessarily a sibling but also a friend, somebody who is not going to let one down no matter what comes, the one who is going to stand by them in times of trouble, the person one can trust. The same goes for the ancestors (spirits of the dead ancestors) which we still respect and remember them in various ways, and the land (masalai-spirit of the land-bush, etc.) relationships mean expectations and obligations going both ways.
If all these relationships are good, the community is good and so everybody can enjoy "life", but if any these relationships are broken or strained, then the community becomes sick, and individuals experience a loss of "life". There will be strife, misfortune, sickness, death of people or domestic animals, failure of gardens, no catch of fish or game. All these are signs that something is wrong with the community, that some relationships are broken.
3. Exchange
If a community comes to such a stage then the relationships must be mended. What establishes, mends, and strengthens the relationships is exchange: the giving and receiving of visible, tangible gifts. Relationships can be established and mended only through exchange. This is true not only for the community in the strict sense but of any relationships. If one wants to become the friend of somebody, that person must express his or her intention with a gift. If the other person then responds with another gift, one knows that the relationship has been accepted and established.
Gratitude follows the same rules. Any gift establishes a relationship. One cannot answer the first part of an exchange with words. One must do something. One must return a gift and that closes the process and establishes the friendly relationship. Words do not suffice. If one offends a friend, that is, breaks the relationship, it is not enough to say "sorry", one must “do sorry” (we don’t say sorry if you do wrong a person, saying sorry alone is not enough, but we give gift to say we are sorry. Eventually a gift will be returned and that is the final sign that peace has been made.
Sickness, crop failure, accidents, etc., as I have already said, are signs of lack of life. If somebody gets sick, people will try to cure the sick person. If the cure does not work then people will check the relationships. If a child is in hospital, for instance, the parents will say that they must go home to "straighten out things." The community will check every relationship to find which one has been broken. It is at this time that a "general confession" could take place: who stole from whom, who slept with whom, etc. The community will check not only relationships to the living but to the dead and the spirits.
If one discovers the broken relationship one must mend it through an exchange. One usually prepares a meal. Whether the broken relationship is with the living, the dead or the land (masalai/spirits), the remedy is always the same: an exchange. In the past, when Papua New Guineans gave a meal to the ancestors or the land (the masalai: the spirits of the land), Christianity labelled it a "sacrifice" which means an action attributing to the dead or spirits a power which belongs only to God. Actually, seen from the value system, it is not a sacrifice at all. It is an exchange aiming at mending a broken relationship within the community.
Cultural Ethical Norms and Values
PNG’s ethical norms and values (laws) are understood as principles and rules of behaviour.
These are ethical laws that direct and guide Papua New Guineans from time immemorial to present day. The law which directs the behaviour of the Papua New Guineans seems to be: "What helps the community is ethically good, what harms the community is ethically bad and what is indifferent to the community is indifferent." Or that is to say, what is good is what is practicable and achievable for the whole group. A good person is someone who contributes to the welfare of the whole group. Good acts are those which benefit the whole group, bad acts are those which degrade the whole group.
Hence, every society in PNG has ethical laws that guide them to live a peaceful and harmonious life. These laws are the guiding pillars that guide the existence of the community. These are not introduced laws like the Ten Commandments of God introduced by Christianity. These are original laws that exist and followed by our ancestors from time immemorial. PNG societies have an ordered in placed already even before the introduction of Christianity and western influences.
To understand this traditional value system and ethical laws one must remember that they point to one thing and that one thing stands for "life", the absolute value. The only absolute value is what we call in Tok Pisin term “Gutpela Sindaun”. Community in PNG over thousands of years was experienced as the only safe way to "Gutpela Sindaun." Community is the key to “Gutpela Sindaun”. Community is a powerful entity, when community says or make a decision, it is always final. And community in PNG always strive for “Gutpela Sindaun” for peace and harmony in the community.
Conclusion
In the age of modernity, Papua New Guineans are attracted to adopt European norms and values. In the process, Papua New Guineans are confused, and are faced with many dilemmas of modernization and lost touch with traditional cultures and values. Papua New Guineans are urged to look back to our ancestors’ wisdom, develop and adopt traditional values and norms again for the benefit of the whole community as expressed in our national constitution. And finally, as Papua New Guineas, what do we do to promote our cultural values in this time of cultural muddle?