The Snake Bone Case: Law, Custom, and Justice in a Papua New Guinea Village Court

Abstract

One of the outcomes of judgmental administrative attitudes toward indigenous praxis in colonial Papua New Guinea was a convention that an antagonistic relationship existed between European law and ‘native custom‘. By the end of the colonial period the defence of ‘custom’ had become part of an anti‐colonial polemic among indigenous intellectuals and politicians. The Village Court system was established in this rhetorical climate. Its mission, reinforced in legislation, included the favouring of ‘custom’ in the dispensation of justice. Subsequent academic and journalistic commentaries on the development of the Village Court system have perpetuated a binary notion of the relationship between law and custom, whether portraying it as antagonistic or articulatory. This article focuses on a single case from a Port Moresby village court, involving an accusation of attempted sorcery. The case raises questions not only about the validity of the discursive law/custom dichotomy but about the notion of custom itself in the context of the dispensation of justice in contemporary Papua New Guinea. It is suggested that in village court praxis, the notion of custom serves the exploitation of village court officers as cheap labour in the justice system.

Sorcery Violence in Bougainville Through the Lens of Human Rights Law: A Critical View

“…While loosely articulated with the state, throughout PNG and Bougainville many grassrootslevel justice institutions and individuals (village courts, peace officers, councils of elders, village assemblies, church leaders etc.) have been embraced by local communities as dispute resolution mechanisms and creatively adapted to a local context (Goddard 1996(Goddard , 2000(Goddard , 2010; however, working with the above should not be to the exclusion of supporting other non-institutionalised forms of authority. So rather than a strategy of intervention or usurping local authority, it may be preferable for the ABG and PNG government to work towards real power sharing with and within local communities in an attempt to stem the multiplication of violent spaces within them.…”

Handling Sorcery in a State System of Law: Magic, Violence and Kastom in Vanuatu.

“…A tendency has been that in these relatively small countries in Melanesia, the supreme court does not escape being influenced by village courts since the distance in kinship and relationship is never long between central administration and local relationships and chiefs. On the other hand, as pointed out by Michael Goddard for the case of Papua New Guinea, village courts have adopted the legalism and procedures of the formal courtrooms even though they were supposed to be informal and democratic organs of the village communities under the colonial regime (Goddard 1996;2009; see also Demian 2003). Also noted by Goddard is a tendency to see courts as being in moral opposition to kastom, since courts are ultimately perceived as the tool of regulation for colonialism and the nation-state, whereas kastom continues to operate with its own form of justice and regulation (also LiPuma 1994; Ottley and Zorn 1983;Rousseau 2008).…”

Fictions of Intention in the “Cultural Defense”

“…The exception was in sorcery hearings, but it should be noted that sorcery is both officially not recognized as real under Papua New Guinean law and also regarded as a somewhat embarrassing relic of the local past by Suau people, both factors that strongly contribute to its identification as “custom.” But in mundane hearings for adultery, slander, outstanding debts, or the inevitable post‐soccer‐game violence, custom never formed part of anyone's discussion of or rationale for what they did. Having said this, there is considerable variation in village court praxis throughout Papua New Guinea, with custom playing a larger discursive role in some areas than others (see, e.g., Goddard 1996; Scaglion 1990; Westermark 1986).…”