Islands Business - Politics/PNG: BLACK JESUS FINALLY NABBED

But could there be another leader emerging?

Patrick Matbob
Papua New Guineans are hoping the capture of notorious cult leader Stephen Tari will put an end to his ‘Black Jesus’ cult.

On a stretcher... Stephen Tari carried on a stretcher through Korog village before being handed over to the police. Photos: Patrick Matbob

Tari was wanted by police in connection with the deaths of two young girls allegedly killed in a sacrificial ritual.

He has also been accused of sexually exploiting many of the 63 ‘flower girls’ he had kept as part of his cult activities.

He was also responsible for burning down homes and destroying properties in several villages and displacing a large number of people. Police had been hunting him since he disappeared while on bail towards the end of 2005.

Tari was overpowered by Matepi villagers while resting in an abandoned teacher’s house at the village community school.

Police said a group of eight men from the village were paid by the Madang Government to capture the cult leader after police had been unsuccessful.

Matepi village is about a day’s walk over rugged mountains from the nearest road which made it difficult for the under-resourced Madang police to apprehend him.

However, his capture will not affect the deep-rooted ‘religious’ beliefs of the people of southern Madang nor prevent another cult leader from emerging amongst them.

This area has been a fertile ground for nourishing cult leaders like Tari and many others. The most famous of them was Yali of Rai Coast.

Anthropologist Peter Lawrence was the first to do a comprehensive study of the Yali cult of Rai Coast which developed after World War II. Lawrence claims that for the people of southern Madang, “religion is an essential ingredient and a paramount intellectual interest in their daily lives.

“They spend a great deal of time examining and debating the meaning of traditional myths and Christian scriptures and any possible combination of the two,” he said.

His early work was published in the book Road Belong Cargo in 1964. Since then, others have studied and written about the southern Madang cults including Louise Morauta and Nancy Sullivan.

The Yali cult that Lawrence studied was the most significant of all the cults that had existed in the area. It was unsuspectingly given prominence and credibility by the Australian administration at the time.

As a result, the Yali cult spread as far as the East Sepik province where it was led by another prominent leader who called himself Yaliwan. It is not surprising therefore, that Tari also claimed a connection to Yali’s cult, which still exists in Madang.

The style of cults in Madang have generally been ‘cargo cults’ where leaders and followers believe that by following certain beliefs and rituals they will be able to obtain ‘cargo’ which is generally ‘goods’ that the ‘white men’ have access to and enjoy.

Lawrence divides up the cults into five different periods in the history of modern Madang which he calls ‘The Five Cargo Beliefs’.

He traces the birth of the cults as far back as 1871 when Russian explorer Nikolai Maclay first arrived and settled amongst the Rai Coast people. The local people at the time believed Maclay was a celestial being and not an ordinary human being because of the large sailing ship he came on, the goods he brought, the clothes he wore and even his behaviour (his lack of fear).

The second era was between 1900—1914 when cults began incorporating local legends of creation of Manup and Kilibob and their role in the present condition of the people and how these heroes of local legends would bring ‘cargo’ to the people.

This time the areas involved in the beliefs extended from Rai Coast in the south as far as the north coast of Madang.

Lawrence sets the third era from 1914—1933 when the renegade mission helpers mainly of the Lutheran and Catholic churches in the area began associating cargo beliefs with Christian teachings.

Between 1933—1945 the beliefs became more complex with the emergence of cult leaders such as Kaut of Kauris, Tagarab of Mirgug, Kaum and his associates and rise of the Letub movement and Begesin rebellion.

From 1948—1950 Yali became a prominent cult leader whose influence would extend beyond the boundaries of Madang and as far as East Sepik. For an uneducated villager, Yali had a distinguished record starting out as a bar boy at the Bulolo Goldfields, then a police sergeant, an NCO in the Australian Infantry Battalion, a soldier in World War II, and later a kiap (government officer) of the Australian administration.

Lawrence and others today believe that Yali never saw himself as a cult leader. Lawrence portrays him as a genuine leader whose aspirations for the development of his people were hindered very much by his lack of education and sophistication in understanding the colonial masters whom he was dealing with.

His vision for development was also successfully hijacked by his aides and as a result cult activities were to spring up in his name throughout Madang without his knowledge nor approval.

He was used by the Australian administration after the war to spread Australian propaganda throughout the Madang districts while he himself was instrumental in trying to bring development to his people through the ‘Raikos rehabilitation scheme’.

Although, he has been dead for more than 30 years now, his name is still revered in parts of Madang and his family members and close followers continue to meet today.

Tari seems to have also benefitted from Yali’s fame claiming himself to be the son of ‘King Yali’.
Lawrence was convinced the creation myth of the two brothers Manup and Kilibob shared from Karkar in the north to Rai Coast in the south has been the basis for the cult beliefs.

In the legend, one of the brothers while fleeing home after a fight was to have sailed along the Madang coast in a canoe, and on the way was responsible for creating populations of people, plants, important skills, languages, songs, rituals, etc.

It is certain the versions of the legend as they are told today have been influenced by western contact and teachings of the missionaries.

Former Madang police station commander Jim Namora, who initially arrested and interviewed Tari, attributed the development of the ‘Black Jesus’ cult to the legends of Manup and Kilibob, which, he said, Tari had studied briefly at the Amron Bible School in Madang, prior to his cult activities.

Madang has not seen the last of the cult leaders and their activities with the arrest of Tari. Others had preceded him—people such as Yali, Kaut, Tagarab, Kaum, Lakit, Yakop and other lesser known names. Another leader is likely to emerge if the present conditions remain.

The government and churches in the area have a lot to do in educating the people and providing development and services to the remote villages if they want to end the cult beliefs and activities.