Preying on those close to home: witchcraft violence in a Papua New Guinea Village

Abstract

Recent attacks on suspected witches in Telefomin led to several deaths and the flight of families in fear of their lives. This violence has much in common with similar events elsewhere in PNG, but there are important differences as well: accusations do not have a misogynist cast (all the targets were men), and the witchcraft is attributed to non-indigenous sources. As in many PNG instances, the police failed to prosecute homicides arising from witchcraft accusations, a fact that has led to widespread local concern. In this paper I present the Telefol cases with a focus on the relation of perpetrators to their victims and to the community at large. I argue that certain aspects of the regional economy combined with a generic witchcraft discourse and the ineffectiveness of the state have fostered a lethal crisis in the relation between villagers and male youth.

Afterword: From Witchcraft to the Pentecostal-Witchcraft Nexus

“…: 72) and who look down upon villagers for their lack of sophistication. The point is often made that contemporary PNG witchcraft targets vulnerable populations, older people and sometimes women (Urame 2015: 27), and insurgent male youth have been known to take the lead in torturing and killing identified witches and sorcerers in PNG (Gibbs 2012: 129-130;Jorgensen 2014;Urame 2015: 27) and Vanuatu (Taylor and Araújo 2016). The upper Asaro seem to be ripe for this development.…”

Becoming Witches: Sight, Sin, and Social Change in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

“…These ideas and symbols are strongly characterized by a theology of "spiritual warfare" found in Pentecostal and charismatic Christian teaching (Jorgensen 2014;Schram 2014;Robbins 2004b;Wesch 2007). This framework envisions recent PNG history as a rupture with a tradition that must be repudiated as demonic: symbols and ideas associated with traditional or customary pasts become associated with Satan, who must be overcome in a manichean struggle between forces of 'good' (Christianity) and 'evil' (tradition;compare especially Meyer 1999).…”

“…Beginning in 1998 and continuing with several return visits through 2014, I conducted fieldwork with people who perceive themselves as plagued both by witchcraft and by the attempts of youth to "mobilize" (mobilais) against suspected witches through violent and sometimes deadly witch hunts (Jorgensen 2014). My analytical focus on sight is motivated by two connections.…”

The Gendered Politics of Witchcraft and Sorcery Accusations among the Maisin of Papua New Guinea

“…2 Reports mention 'unexplained deaths and sickness, social stress and change, poverty, uneven development, issues of jealousy and the problem of drugs and alcohol' as factors associated with this phenomenon (c.f. Executive Summary Goroka Conference 2013, 1; see also Jorgenson 2014). The related accusations and violence are clearly gendered in nature (see also Taylor and Araújo n.d.), and tend to be perpetrated against those people who are most vulnerable due to unequal power relations and lack of support and income, such as women, widows and the elderly.…”