Many people believe that people with unwritten languages are simple and uncomplicated. Let this chapter challenge that wrong premise as we unwrap the practice of marriage in the Elimbari people group.
Flag of Chimbu
We lived in the Chimbu Province. It was one of the two provinces in Papua New Guinea that practiced pre-marital sex. As a result, the men and women usually married at an early age. The main reason for this was that the parents with daughters did not want them to get pregnant out of wedlock because that would lower the amount of the bride price they would receive. When we moved into the Elimbari people group in 1971, the bride price was about $500 Australian, 5 to 10 pigs, and a collection of bird feathers. If the bride-to-be was the daughter of an important person or if she was educated, then the price would be higher.
The groom’s family would decide when he was to get married. They had to make sure that they had the finances, pigs, and feathers prepared for the bride price. In addition to the bride price, they needed to have pigs and food ready for the wedding feast. Besides the food preparation, the women had string skirts and bags to make. During the wedding ceremony, they would adorn the people who were to give the pigs for the bride price and for the wedding feasts. Yes, that word is plural because two feasts would take place. More about those later.
In their culture, gathering the bride price and preparing for wedding feasts was a team effort. The people were all gardeners and pig herders and were expected to help each other contribute the things needed. If someone helped another family by contributing the things needed for a wedding, then eventually those contributions would have to be paid back. So those contributors would raise pigs, plant gardens, gather money, and make string skirts and bags in advance. So, if your father helped a relative pay for his son’s wife, that relative would be obligated to help pay for your wife in the future.
The young men in a village who had reached puberty and started growing facial hair would go to other villages near and far to befriend girls who would be potential brides. Because there was tribal fighting among different clans at various times, the young men would arrive after dark and depart before dawn. The available girls would gather in huts with chaperones each night never knowing whether anyone would show up for visits nor who might come. Each girl would choose which boy she would sleep with each night.
During these ‘dates,’ the young people would line up in two facing rows by girl boy, girl boy and entwine their legs to keep close to each other while singing songs, wagging their heads first to the left and then to the right, rubbing cheeks and noses alternately with those sitting on each side of them. This was called ‘karim lek’ meaning supporting legs. With a fire burning in the hut and the close proximity one can only imagine how warm that would be. Before and after the singing there would be some smoking, joking, and getting to know each other and eventually they would sleep together on platform beds. It was a time to get to know each other and form friendships from which some may result in marriage.
There was no limit as to how many villages the boys could visit. As families would begin wedding preparations years before the event, the boys were encouraged to get out there and look for possible wives. I was in the haus man (men’s dormitory) at times when a boy would be sitting there near bedtime, and one of the men would say to him, “What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you a man? Don’t you have a penis? Get out of here and go sleep with a girl.” Other men would generally chime in and say other things that would shame the boy into leaving the haus man. You can imagine how this kind of pressure would be a trial for a Christian young man.
In families which had more than one son, they would buy the eldest son’s wife first. When things were all in place, it would be his time to get married. If for some reason he refused to get married at that time, the second son would get married first. It was the same for families with girls. The eldest daughter would be sold first. When it was her time to be sold, she would be sold.
One day I was in the village, and heard the common shout that friends had arrived. Going to the haus man to greet the visitors, I saw that there was a bride-price display set up there. The group had come to buy a wife for their son. Shortly after they were settled, another group came and set up a second bride-price display. It was the only time I had ever seen that happen because it was very rare. The prospective bride was called in and her family asked her which man she would prefer to marry. You could tell she was struggling with an answer, and after some badgering, she gave an answer so quietly that only one person could hear it. Her answer was against her family’s preference. They rebuked her, trying to reason with her, but she ran out of the door crying. One of her clan brothers followed her shouting at her about her poor choice. I couldn’t hear what she said in reply, but I saw her brother hit her so hard upside of her head that she fell and rolled several feet until she was against a hut writhing in pain and shame. She eventually rescinded her choice and was sold to the man she didn’t want to marry.
The groom could tell his family which of the young women he preferred for them to buy for him from those he had befriended during his nocturnal visits, but that didn’t always end well.
Each wedding always seemed to be different. In fact, the groom didn’t have to attend, especially if he was working in a distant place.
The ideal marriage was to marry a girl from your mother’s clan. All men married girls from outside their clans. Your mother would be made a part of her new clan and often given a new name to symbolize that she was born into a new family. This also ensured that her former clan and her new clan would be allies in times of war. To have your son marry into that clan again would strengthen that relationship even more. So, when a child was born, the maternal relatives would visit the mother and give gifts to the baby. This was known as a ‘friend relationship’ and was sought after between the two clans. It also doubled as an investment because all of those visits were made with gifts of food, money and other things. After years of the two clans visiting back and forth, the maternal relatives would give a pig to the new clan of their sister and let them know that it was time to pay up.
A time would be set and you would hear singing coming from a distance and it slowly got closer until it reached the village. The ‘friends’ would wait for a formal invitation to enter the village. The formal invitation was a mock enactment of war. Members of the clan would appoint people to go towards the friends armed with spears and slowly force the friends away from the village entrance and then come back to the entrance again and again and finally allow the friends to enter.
One day, I was the only male around so in a panic the ladies found me a spear and I was told to do the mock battle. I had watched them done before so I tried to reenact it as best I could. I got a lot of laughs from both clans for my stellar performance, and it was talked about many times afterwards.
The mother’s new clan members would enter the village carrying bundles of food and a long pole made by joining several sections of bamboo covered with money. The money was given to the maternal relatives who had come to visit and bring gifts many times through the years, with speeches of appreciation given to the ‘friends.’ The visits through the years not only gave the friends a chance to talk about marriage, but it also afforded the two children an opportunity to get to know each other, hoping they would eventually want to join in wedlock.
Just because a clan takes their bride-price display to the haus man of another clan does not guarantee they will accept it. If they have had bad experiences with the searching clan, they may not want to encourage a new relationship by selling them another girl. Sometimes the girl doesn’t want to go marry the boy from that clan, although, sometimes she is forced to go. Sometimes the groom’s clan will come home saying a certain girl has agreed to marry him, and he will refuse to marry her. As mentioned before, he usually gives his family the choice of one or more women to choose from, however, his own family may have had bad experiences with those particular clans and not wish to get another girl from them.
I have seen the family of a boy go from clan to clan and no one wants to sell them a girl. Many ask for more feathers, pigs or money than what was offered. In exasperation, sometimes his family will buy a total stranger for the boy. That rarely works out well with the boys. But occasionally the young couple develops a good relationship and it works out fine.
After a clan has accepted the bride price and agreed to sell a girl, plans for the wedding feast begin and a date is set for the initial feast. The first feast is when the groom’s family go to get the girl and bring her home. Many of those feasts are very similar, but some things are done differently. Usually, the groom’s family arrive at the girl’s village in the afternoon after the pigs and food have been cooked. The venue was always the haus man.
You would not believe how many people they would pack into those houses. People were jammed in and food was brought for the groom’s family to eat then and some to take back with them. The bride and groom were dressed up in traditional attire for the occasion. Both clans would feast heartily and the groom’s clan would start singing which usually lasted for hours and only stopped when many of them started falling asleep. Some weddings would have alcoholic beverages and invariably many would end up drunk, and sometimes there were arguments and even fights between the groom’s relatives.
The next morning, most of the guests were bleary-eyed and hung over, but it was time to give speeches, get the bride and groom married and take her back to the boy’s village. I have observed the bride and groom standing near each other holding a jawbone of a cooked pig. They would both take hold of it, twist it until it was in two pieces, and then each of them would hand one to their mate to take a bite. Applause and shouts of joy would erupt from both clans at seeing the couple agree to be together as man and wife. At many weddings, the bride would be handed the cooked belly fat of a pig which had been partially cut into small cubes. As she held on to it, friends of the groom would come and take bites from the pork, but they were not allowed to cut it or hold it with their hands. They had to put their hands behind their backs and bite into it and chew off a bite amidst much joy and laughter. Sometimes they would bite off chunks and throw them into the air and they would splat on people as they fell down. Sometimes the dogs would fight over the pieces as well which would always add excitement to the occasion.
Many of the men would eat parts of it too. If they were at the front of the line, they would get grease all over their faces and beards as they tried to bite off chunks to eat. Through the years, I learned to go near the end of the line. By the time I reached the belly fat, it was smaller and easier for me to bite off (and it usually was leaner meat). Can you guess what all that symbolized? I found out it was an act of confirmation that the male family members of the groom agreed to the marriage and accepted the bride as a new member of their clan.
After the marriage exchange, designated people would take string skirts and tie them around the waists of those who would kill the family’s pigs in return for the pigs they had received. They would also put string bags around people for the same reason as well as colorful pieces of material on those of the wedding party so they would be recognized later.
Then it was time for speeches with promises to look after the bride and cherish her. Then the groom’s friends and family would surround the girl, start singing and slowly usher her out of the village. It was a great emotional time as the bride’s relatives would wail as if she had died with some of them writhing on the ground. One wedding I attended, the brother of the bride ran in her direction, took an axe and chopped off his little finger, a cultural sign of grief or disappointment. The bride stood up and asked for an axe or machete to cut her finger off as well. The people kept a tight grip on her so she could not carry out her plan. Her brother came over to her and fell between her legs with his blood spurting out like a squirt gun. Some elderly ladies would catch his blood and rub it on their faces in grief. Eventually, they put a small joint of bamboo under his finger to catch the blood, with instructions that when it was full, he should be taken to the haus man, laid on a bed and have a tourniquet tied around the finger to stop the bleeding.
Group emotion is a powerful thing and nearly everyone was wailing by then. As I thought about my own sisters leaving our family to join another, I shed a few tears too. I have seen people block the bride’s exit by falling on the ground in front of her. I’ve seen people throw themselves off small banks and land below writhing in pain and mourning in grief at the bride’s departure. The bride would be blinded by her own tears and I have seen those escorting her pick her up and carry her out of the village.
The groom’s family would escort the bride all the way to the groom’s village often singing as they walked along. The bride would be led to the haus man and seated in front of it so those who didn’t attend the wedding feast could come and greet her. Later, she would be led to her mother-in-law’s house where she would live for a time of instruction and getting to know her new family members. She would remain under her mother-in-law’s care until she was deemed a fit wife, and her husband was told to build her a house to start their married life together.
After a few months, the groom’s clan would set a time to have the pay-back feast. They would have to repay the bride’s clan for all the food, drinks and items which had been given to them during the first wedding feast. Sometimes people thought I was a novelty and would shower me with extra goodies. I would write those items down along with the names of those who gave them to me. As the date of the pay-back feast drew near, I would make sure I purchased the things I needed to pay back. At times, it ended up an expensive shopping list.
In situations where the husband worked away from the tribe, he would be told he should send for his wife to join him. The wife was considered “purchased property,” and she should always be true to her husband. Young husbands often kept making their former nocturnal visits to young girls, but they would not be considered a ‘good catch’ any longer.
I was 25 when I moved into Keu Village and was often invited to join other young husbands to go sleep with available girls. And sometimes they encouraged me to take a second wife from among the available village girls. I started telling them that I was happy with my wife. This didn’t always stop the young ladies from hitting on me when I visited other villages for various reasons. For that reason, I always tried to have another man accompany me. I remember one night when I was in a new village and sleeping soundly when I heard scratching on the wall of the hut and a young lady trying to entice me to come outside. I told her that I was asleep and she should go away.
At another time, some young men kept asking me to come and visit them in their village in another language group. By the time we arrived, there was food prepared for us and we chowed down. Since it was nearly dark, I expected that we would sleep in that village, but I was told we had some more hiking to do. After a short hike, we arrived in their village and they got soap, towels, and small lamps ready to go take a bath in the cold mountain stream nearby. When we returned to their hut, there were several girls sitting on the floor tending the fire. I hung up my towel and thought we’d be going to sleep soon. But something unique happened. One by one, the young people left the hut until one girl was left at the fire. She was bi-lingual and spoke to me in Elimbari asking me, “Ne apra difanga monbere, difaikenga mone?” The interpretation of what she asked me was, “Do you sleep with your girls or not?” I told her I did not and that I was a married man. About twenty minutes later, the boys returned and I realized that they had just given me the opportunity to do what they would like to do.
As a Christian, I knew that the enemy could have used that situation to destroy my ministry and my marriage, but the whisper of “Jim, I know where you are,” was a great reminder that I was never alone.
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