Wayne & Gail Chen Bringing the Gospel to the Biem people in Papua New Guinea 
A few weeks ago, a tribal man came and sat down in front of our house in the bush. This was our conversation.
Man: I am so tired…
Me: Why are you so tired? What did you do?
Man: I spent the whole morning butchering a pig I shot last night. I am really tired now.
Me: Wow, that’s great…how did you shoot it?
Man: I went with my dogs…the dogs surrounded the pig and called for me. I heard their voice, went and shot the pig. Man, I spent the whole morning butchering that thing. I am so tired.
[I am thinking at this point...”hmmm, I wonder why he didn’t bring any meat to us?” Usually the people would bring meat from their hunts (pig, emu, crocodile, bush rat) and sell some to the missionaries.]
Me: You guys must be having a feast today!
Man: I wanted to bring some pig meat to you but all you whiteskins (whoever’s not black in PNG) would put the meat in the ice box. I knew you would put the meat in the ice box. When you do that, my dogs are going to feel cold and they won’t be able to hunt anymore. That’s why I did not bring any meat.
Me: Hmm? What did you say again? Did you mean the pig would feel cold? The pig is dead already! [I am completely lost at this point]
Man: [Laughing hard] No, not the pig. When you put pig in the ice box, my DOGS are going to feel cold and they won’t be able to hunt anymore. See, if I shoot a pig without my dogs, then I would give some of the meat to you. You can put it in the ice box and that won’t be a problem. But if I shoot the pig with my dogs…then we can’t give it to the whiteskins because you guys always put the meat in the ice box.
Me: Ok…[still trying to put my head around this]…well, if you shoot one next time, we would love to get some meat!
We decided to do some cultural investigation about this conversation. I started asking around the village to confirm what he said and many of the man told me, “yup, if I shoot a pig with my dogs, I won’t bring it to the missionaries”. It took a few more conversations in the village to discover the underlying belief amongst the tribal people.
Many of the tribal men use dogs in their hunt. Before the hunt, some of them would perform “magic” (literally: putting wind of the mouth on something) on the tails of the dogs. They believe this practices gives the dogs special power to find and round up pigs in the jungle. They also believe that by putting the pig meat (or whatever they get from their hunts) in the freezer, it kills the “magic”. This is what the man meant when he said the dogs would feel “cold”, meaning the magic is no longer working. In an animistic culture, there are no coincidences…you do not just have a bad day of fishing, some spirits must be angry. EVERYTHING happens for a reason.
Some of you may have wondered or thought…man, it must be nice to go fishing or hunting all day long! True, I do enjoy putting the hurt and shedding the blood of some wild mammals every once in a while but that’s not the reason why we go to hunts with the tribal people. It is often in trips like this that we discover their worldviews and animistic beliefs. Gaining solid knowledge of their worldviews is essential for missionaries before we can effectively present the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A typical house in the village
A night hunt…Nick shot the bush rat. It’s supposed to be a delicacy but I kindly offered it to him since I am just such a great guy!
