Urapmin people
The Urapmin used to ally with the Telefolmin in war against other Min peoples, practicing cannibalism against the enemy dead, but warfare ceased by the 1960s with the arrival of colonialism.
[2][3][4] Min peoples are mainly found in the Telefomin District, spread from the mountains of the Strickland River to West Papua Province.
[4] The latter name contrasts them with the Lowland Ok people to the south who speak related languages but differ greatly culturally and in the environment that they live in.
[7] This includes hunting and gathering from forests and stream-beds, shifting taro cultivation, and raising small numbers of domestic pigs.
[9] A salient shared feature of Min culture is a common origin myth and initiation into a secret male religious cult.
[12] Warfare might consist either of small ambush parties, which would surprise people on paths and in gardens and kill and eat all of those caught, no matter their age or sex.
[12] The Urapmin divided up peoples encountered into traditional allies (Urap: dup) and enemies (wasi), along with foreigners (ananang).
[18] Led by an American by the name of Ward Williams, the party consisted of eight (later nine) Europeans and twenty-three natives recruited from the coast.
[20]In 1944, the Australians built up the airstrip in Telefomin for use by the Allied Forces as an emergency landing strip in the New Guinea campaign of World War II.
[21] From this point until the end of the war, the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit kept a post in Telefomin, though it is unclear to what extent this affected the Urapmin at the time.
[29] They live in a remote region; Telefomin, the District Office, and an airstrip can only be reached by a difficult seventeen-mile walk.
[31][nb 2] The villages along the Bimbel ridge are Danbel (Muli Kona), Salafaltigin, Drum Tem, Atemkit, and Dimidubiip.
[34] In particular, Tok Pisin is associated with modernity and Western institutions and is regularly used in contexts such as local governance and Christian services and discussions.
[34] Unlike some other peoples in Papua New Guinea, the Urapmin have not attempted to find native equivalents for Tok Pisin terms related to Christianity.
[34] The New Testament edition most used by the Urapmin is in Tok Pisin, the Nupela Testamen Ol Sam published by the Bible Society of Papua New Guinea.
[27] The hunting of marsupials, wild pigs, and other game is greatly valued in Urapmin culture, but it does not contribute significantly to sustenance.
[40] The Urapmin stand out among "remote" hunter-gatherer societies in how strongly they have rejected their traditional beliefs and practices (Urap: alowal imi kukup, literally "ways of the ancestors") and embraced those of Protestant Christianity.
[43] Humans were created in a multiple birth of the cultural heroine Afek, emerging immediately after the first dog (Urap: kyam).
[9] Afek was believed to have married a serpent who formed the glade that only men could enter to reach Telefolip upon its death throes.
[9] The traditional law of the Urapmin was characterized by many rules about religious behavior and an elaborate taboo system, focused especially on eating and land use, as well as regulating what could be touched and who could know what information.
[40] Natural resources, including streams, large trees, hunting ground, and game were believed to be owned by the motobil, and humans could only use what they were given permission to respectfully.
[49] The Urapmin refer to the current period as "free time" (Tok Pisin: fri taim), a liberating era where food and ground are freely available.
[41][50] They now believe that Afek and the other mythical Urapmin characters arose after the generations of "Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and Abraham" and lied, claiming falsely that they had created everything and that breaking their taboos would induce illness.
[51] Since the Urapmin now believe that God gave creation to humans to use, they see taking the motobils' property to be a moral imperative.
"[24] As elsewhere in Papua New Guinea, the form of Christianity among the Urapmin focuses especially on "millennial themes"—the return of Jesus and impending judgement.
[24] Religious discourse often focuses on the need to control desires and obey the law of the Bible and the government in order to live a good Christian life.
[55] Both traits are considered important; for example, a woman is expected to choose her husband by exercising her own will, rather than caving to the pressure of her family or her suitors.
[47] The Urapmin have innovated an institution of confession (Tok Pisin: autim sin), which was not present in the Baptist Church which they belong to.
[25] Prayer may be both communal and individual, for such things as health, agriculture, hunting, relief from anger, bad omens in dreams, blessing meals, removal of sin, and just to offer praise to God.
[25] In addition to ritual speech during prayer, the Urapmin emphasize that a Christian life involves listening to "God's talk" (Urap: Gat ami weng).
