eating grandma

When I was teaching in Kimbe, West New Britian,  Papua New Guinea in 1976  anthropologists lived a few houses up the street. The wife was Dutch. She had done her PhD studying the traditional societies in Surinam, Central America. The husband a Hungarian man PhD, MD  had a crook back which gave him trouble when he tried to dance. That didn’t stop him dancing even though he was in pain. One day he showed me his collection of Yoni, large beautifully carved panels of vaginas which were sacred objects of great power to the local people. He gestured dramatically at the panels saying, ‘yoni, yoni!’  Some carvings more than metres in height, were of female figures with Yoni. Some were just Yoni. He was extremely proud of his unique collection & he stroked them as he spoke. He said except for yoni none of us would exist. Surely a subject worthy of adoration & worship.

Earlier that same day I had been talking to my next door neighbour, the local police chief. His number 2 came across the road to join in the conversation. I said that I hadn’t seen them around for a few days. They told me that they’d been over to Bali Vetu, an island just off the coast. On a clear day standing on the beach Bali Vetu was visible to the naked eye. I asked what they were doing over there for so long. They said that they had gone there to arrest the whole island for cannibalism.

The local tribe there about 206 people had buried grandmother. They let her body lie there at rest for 10 days in what was effectively a ground oven. Then they had dug her up in a spiritual ritual & ate her body & talked to her spirit. The men of the community ate the flesh & the women & children ate the entrails. I had gone to have a chat to the anthropologists about this. They knew what had happened locally. They told me that they’d been on the UN team investigating ‘laughing sickness’ that occurred in some areas. The women & kids suffered from laughing hysteria. They ate the viscera.

We talked about the event with the Professor of Anthropology when she was in town visiting her tribal family. She had a connection in the area dating back to when she studied with Margaret Mead. Father Dr Brand when we mentioned the eating of the Bali grandmother at our place over tea said that the custom was dying out. He worked with a community on the other side of the island several days walk away. He told us that in the area where he was that the older women knew a leaf that prevented conception. If a son brought a girl home to bed they didn’t like they would put the leaf in the food. A girl who didn’t bear a child was rejected by the family.