Chapter Eight
Survey to Pawaia
Together with the Beams we decided we should help the new missionaries adjust to their adopted country and by teaching them how to speak Melanesian Pidgin so they could communicate and build relationships. Neither the Beams nor ourselves had been afforded the time to get oriented to the people and culture in such a way. We often said, “No one told us what to do until we made mistakes, and then they would rebuke us.” We had just wished that the experienced missionaries had told us what to do and not to do before we did the wrong thing. We had plenty of work to do ourselves, but both families believed we should help the new arrivals. We did that for several years by running over thirty-five units through the course.
As we got to know each person and observe how well they interacted with the villagers, it gave us an idea about what their future abilities would be to live in a tribe, adjust culturally, build relationships, and learn another language. Some had come to work in what we called ‘support ministries’ such as living at the field headquarters and teaching in the mission school, or working in the clinic, finance office or one of the other jobs that would help those missionaries who worked in the tribal areas. The support missionaries are a vital part in helping those who end up on the frontline as church planters.
Those who wanted to do church planting in a tribe needed to know which tribes needed to hear God’s word and needed missionaries to come and work among them. There were many of those tribes in PNG, but someone needed to go visit them and do what we called surveys.
Surveys were important to find those people groups who had no gospel witness, and who would want missionaries to come live among them to teach them the truth of God’s word. Information would be gathered such as how do you get there, how many villages are there, the population, did they have any schools, medical facilities, government workers, or other churches, etc. I began to see the need to do organized surveys and to write reports with the statistics and the needs of the people and give them to the field leadership to read. They would then pass on to our various mission training facilities around the world so that the students and staff could pray that God would open the way to get workers to help the people who needed them the most.
One of the first surveys I went on was with Jack Douglas and Ron Beam in 1973 to the Pawaia people group. Previously, one of our missionaries
Together with the Beams we decided we should help the new missionaries adjust to their adopted country and by teaching them how to speak Melanes, John White, working in the Gimi people group, accompanied a couple of Australian coffee buyers on a hike from Gimi to the south coast of PNG. He hiked through Pawaia villages and observed that they were extremely isolated and unrecognized by the government as far as any type of services were concerned. John returned and let others know about the isolated people of Pawaia. When Jack and Isa Douglas heard about those people, their hearts were stirred to pray and ask God if he wanted them to help reach the Pawaia people.
Our mission didn’t have an aviation program back then, but a single man who was a friend of the mission, David Rowe, owned a small Cessna 170 which he used to help people get into remote areas. It was arranged that he would fly the three of us into a government airstrip at Karimui, which was on the northern border of the Pawaian territory. He would leave us there and return in nine days to pick us up. We had no phones, radios or any way to communicate with the outside world. But do you know what? Neither did the Pawaian people. They couldn’t even write a letter to mail since they were illiterate and had no pencils, paper, stamps, envelopes, or a postal service. This was like going backwards in time. What did we think we were doing? We knew that these people were made in the image of the Creator, and He wanted them to know about Him. Were we risking our lives? Maybe. But we went forward by faith.
After we landed in Karimui, people were buzzing around us asking us who we were and where we were going. We told them that we had come to meet the Pawaian people. One of the nearest villages was named Haia which was about a day-and-a -half walk away. We found some guides and carriers and set off. I had volunteered to cook on the trip when there were no people to feed us. I had a kerosene primus stove that could cook one pot at a time. I carried it in a large blue plastic bucket which was used to get water for cooking and then to wash dishes. The goal was to reach a large river and cross it before getting to the village of Haia the next day.
As we got to the river, it was raining pretty heavily and the water was swelling over the banks of the river as we looked on. It would be impossible to cross the raging river so we had to sleep in a safe place away from the river. We made a makeshift shelter and tried to stay dry and warm. The scent of acid from the ants in the rainforest was always strong. I don’t remember what I cooked that night, but it was probably rice and canned meat.
Other times as we hiked around from village to village, we would sleep in temporary shelters which were made by the people. The Pawaians were hunter and gatherers accustomed to sleeping in these types of shelters after searching for food and wild game. They didn’t have many domesticated pigs, but there were wild pigs in abundance, fish, cassowaries (large birds that were the next size down from emus), possums and many other animals.
At different shelters, we would often arrive there when they were empty. As the day drew to a close, different groups would join us and they would always share whatever they had to eat with us. One night, they asked us if we had any salt, and I shared some with them. In turn, they shared their food. I remember one group had gathered fresh grub worms from the decaying trees lying on the ground. They were about the size of your first finger and they would put them in short joints of bamboo and cook them over the fire. For sharing our salt with them one group gave Ron and Jack some of the fish they had caught. My group shared their grub worms with me. The missionary prayer of, “Lord help me get this down and keep it down” was offered up and it was my first experience of eating grubs. I remember well when I bit into the first one, and it went sploosh down my throat. The hardest part was chewing the heads, but later I learned to spit them out. I survived just fine.
By the next morning, the river had gone down to its normal flow and our guides helped us get across safely by grabbing our hands on each side and kind of bobbing off the rocky bottom. There is no doubt that we would have been swept quickly downstream had we attempted to cross on our own. Remember I had my precious blue bucket. Ha! Not really. I had handed over everything I was carrying to others who tried to keep it safe and dry. We made it to the other side and shortly afterward, we followed the bank heading for Haia.
There was still another river to cross before reaching Haia. Due to the rain, it was moving fast. At certain places the people could jump from stone to stone, but when the space between stones was too wide, they would gather saplings, tie them at one end, and drop the bundle from one stone to another. They were adept at using those makeshift bridges, but we found them challenging. At one such bridge, the water was shooting downstream between two boulders. As I stood there watching the flow of water, it made me dizzy and fearful to cross the bridge. My solution was to go backwards on the bridge so I could watch the water flowing beneath my legs. It gave the guides and missionaries a good laugh, but I made it across safely.
The people were smaller-built generally with less body hair than the highlanders. Nearly every male had the septum of his nose pierced and filled with pieces of shells from the ocean The holes in their septum’s were big so they often wove spacers around the pieces of shell to pad them and make them stay securely in place. Some pierced their noses from the inside making small holes similar to piercing ears. They would put bat wing bones through the holes that would stick straight out of the front of their noses, giving the appearance it could poke the eyes out of anyone who tried to approach them too closely. Men, women and even some children were adorned in the same manner.
The language sounded very strange because they had nine vowels and would nasalize them giving them eighteen vowels. Sometimes it sounded like they were just trying to clear their noses when in fact they had spoken a full sentence. It is one of the most difficult languages in PNG. But even so these illiterate people could easily speak and understand it. Being illiterate doesn’t mean people are ignorant.
As we approached the village, there was quite an excitement in the air. Most of the people had never seen white people before. They came and greeted us and decided which house we would be allowed to use and who would be our host. The houses there were up on stilts and notched logs were used as ladders to climb up. They managed climbing up and down with no handrails, but each time I tried to walk down, I had to turn around and go down backwards as I held on to the log. They probably wondered how a grown man could be so unsteady.
Their houses were rectangular or square with a wall across the center of the house so that men and women couldn’t see each other. They could hand things back and forth across the top of the wall. One of their strange customs was that a man could not see his mother-in-law or a daughter-in-law so the center walls were a ‘must have’ except in houses where only men slept.
Some of the men were never able to get married because of a shortage of women caused by the older men having more than one wife. They were people who did bride exchanges. One clan would give a daughter to be married into another clan and that clan would be responsible to give a bride back to that clan in the future. They didn’t have bride price down there, and the groom’s clan didn’t have a chance to pick who the bride would be. When each clan followed the rules of bride exchanges, both clans would generally be satisfied. However, when it was time for the clan to provide a bride for the clan from which they had received one and they didn’t give one, or gave the girl to another clan, it would cause war between the two clans. This was the reason for many battles starting and loss of lives.
I remember visiting a hut one night and observing who I thought were a father and daughter. But later I was told they were husband and wife. He must have been at least twenty years older than her. Later, a young man asked me how much older I was than my wife. When I told him we were born in the same year, he gave a big sigh and said, “I really want to marry a woman my age rather than a little girl.”
Very few of the people could speak Melanesian Pidgin so communication was hard. From the few who did know how to speak it, it was apparent that they had substituted their own sounds for some Pidgin sounds. In Pidgin if you said, “Mi kukim kaikai” it meant “I cooked some food,” but they would substitute T’s for K’s and say, “Mi tutim taitai.” Quite a difference, but we slowly caught on to it.
As cultural hospitality dictated, they cooked for us while we were with them. Their main food staples were sago palm and greens. Sago palm grows all around the country in swampy areas. Some grow wild, but many of them are planted with the next generation in mind because they take such a long time to mature. The leaves are long and have sharp three-pronged thorns about four inches long. Some new types that have been introduced are thornless. When the tree is mature and ready for harvest, it is chopped down and the leaves are cut off. With the tree on the ground, they chop the bark off the top of the tree. The inside of the tree is a light color andsofter the an other trees. The people sit facing the logs and use adzes to chip away the pulp inside, while retaining it to be processed. It requires a lot of physical labor to beat the pulp with hard clubs while it is lying on top of a table-like structure which has leaves attached to it so the residue that is beaten out of the pulp can run down to a sturdy bowl made from more leaves. As the residue fills up in the collection bowl, it is scooped out and put into storage containers which allow the residue to dry out enough for it to be cooked for consumption. They would pour swamp water onto the pulp, beat the residue and repeat the process until there was no longer any residue coming out. Then they throw the pulp off the table and scoop fresh pulp onto the table to repeat the process for hours, day after day. We were not there long enough to see the whole process from start to finish until all the pulp was harvested and processed, but we saw parts of the procedure.
While we were among them, the Pawaians cooked and ate sago every day. As they filled joints of bamboo with the powdery sago and cooked it over the fire, it would be steamed and slowly turn into a firm spongy consistency. To be honest, it was like chewing on firm foam rubber. There wasn’t a lot of flavor in it, but it was filling. Occasionally, they would add some greens, bits of meat or other things by which to improve it. After a couple of days on the sago diet, Ron asked me to cook something more western for him. I reminded him that the food I carried was only to be used when there were no people around to cook for us. Anyway, I opened a can of corn beef for our host to add to the sago for the next meal. When Ron ate it, I asked him what he thought about it, and he replied, “It’s like corn beef with 90% gristle.”
The people often wore bark capes made by cutting a large piece of bark from certain trees and carefully beating it with stones or wooden clubs until it was soft and pliable. They were used as umbrellas to keep dry and to keep out of direct sunlight. They were also used as tarps and blankets. Because the men were never supposed to see or be seen by their mother-in-laws they were also used as shields to hide themselves. Once we were hiking to another village and Ron was at the front of our single-file string of people. He walked around a bend in the path, and we heard loud shouts of fear from three ladies covered by their bark capes and shaking uncontrollably. Later, we teased Ron that he was so ugly it frightened the women away.
Most of the women we saw were covered with bark capes and we could only see their noses and chins sticking out. We wanted to capture their unique style and we tried to take a photo of a group of them one day. To our surprise they all lined up to pose then dropped their capes to the ground and standing there topless with big smiles.
In the next village we approached, some of the people were dressed up in their finery and sang some traditional songs to us. Later, they opened a steam-cooking pit in which contained a cooked pig and an assortment of vegetables. They gave us a wonderful welcome as well as a wonderful meal. They talked with Jack about their need for missionaries and for government services with the hope he and Isa would return to work among them.
We ran into a strange display of leeches along the path. They weren’t the fat black ones that attached themselves to people in damp places. They were thin long ones that were at the tips of long grass and reeds, wiggling around in search of fresh blood. The first person to go along the path was pretty leech-free, but when the leeches sensed there were blood donors nearby, those coming along the path later were fair game for them. We felt a small sting as they broke our skin, but there wasn’t much additional pain. The worst part was trying to pinch them and convince them they would have less pain if they would let go and retreat.
When we headed for the next village, there were some of the black leeches that lived in damp places. The villagers had brought some lemons along and encouraged us to smear the lemon juice onto our ankles and feet to ward off the leeches. It generally worked well, but as we walked through so many streams along the trail not much lemon juice was left on us to repel the leeches.
When we reached the village, it had been abandoned and the undergrowth of the rainforest had started creeping in. Our guides and carriers found a house that was suitable for us to sleep in that night and then they took off to hunt for food. It was a good time for us to get our bedding out and get it ready for that night. My sleeping bag was all set for action, but later I noticed what I thought was sand on my bag. I thought, “Who was so rude as to get sand on my bag by walking on it?” I brushed the ‘sand’ off, but I noticed someone had walked on it again and had to clean it off again. While waiting for the evening meal I stretched out on my bag for a little rest. As I was lying there, ready to take a nap, I noticed something like sand falling on my face and sleeping
bag. I realized in disgust that no one had tracked in sand. The old grass roof of the hut was literally raining down ____? Have you guessed what it was that was gently pelting me and covering my bag? It was roach turds. Scores of them every minute! All I could think was that I sure hoped I wouldn’t sleep with my mouth open that night. Oh well! If I did, it might help me to build immunity to any diseases that might be borne by roaches.
At one point, our guides led us up a slow-running creek with a green bottom. It was really slick and made walking a challenge. I had been carrying a box containing pots and pans, plates and silverware. Ron said, “Let me help you carry those for a while.” We transferred the box into the top of his pack and not long afterwards he stepped on a slick stone and fell on his back with a crash. He got up and everyone stopped to see if he was okay. However, where he would have no doubt hit his head on a large stone, the box saved him from injury and maybe even worse.
Our isolation and lack of communication to the outside world hit me again. Had he been hurt, there was no way to call in a helicopter to take him to a hospital. We wouldn’t have been able to call for medical advice or have provided Ron with sutures. Thank the Lord he was okay. A true tribute to God’s faithfulness and perhaps to the hardness of Ron’s skull. The largest pot in the box had a big dent in it. Better it than Ron’s head!
We visited other villages and arrived back at the Karimui airstrip a day early. Wondering what we would do for the night, we all decided to have a bath in a nice water hole. Since we were strangers, people seemed shy about stripping down in public. So, we all bathed with underwear left on. One man stepped into the water and turned quickly back to where he had left his clothes., I saw him reach into the fly of his underwear and pull out some tobacco he had stored there. Needless to say, I’d never seen anyone store anything in their fly before, but I would pity anyone who tried to bum a smoke from him.
After cleaning up and shaving, we heard the faint sound of an airplane engine. The pilot had decided to return a day early to see if we were ready to leave. We were more than ready to return home. God allowed us to see many of the Pawaians, and some of their culture, experiencing their food and hospitality and to build long lasting relationships. Two of the younger boys who seemed to follow me around became my friends and remained dear to me living until they were both grandfathers.
Later, Jack and Isa moved into the village of Haia after doing some other surveys trying to discern the best place to live among the Pawaia people. Haia was up on a flat ridge above a river. The area was ideal for planting their gardens. Jack wondered if it was long enough to make an airstrip. They paced it off and got the rough measurements. It seemed that it would be large enough for an airstrip.
In those days, the missionaries would build simple houses out of local building materials for their first few years in the villages. But later, Ron and I were able to return to Haia to help Jack and Isa cut lumber for a more permanent house. We were also blessed to return to Haia for various reasons through the years and it was remarkable to see the changes there. Jack and Isa saw God touch many lives there, and a church was born. Today, there are ten churches in the tribe. People from other languages that bordered Pawaia and mocked them for being illiterate and such backward people have seen the changes in their lives and have asked them to come teach them God’s word.
The airstrip was a mammoth project to complete by hand. Trees had to be felled and burned, roots and large boulders were buried in holes dug for that purpose. The ground had to be leveled and tamped down to make it more solid, while trenches had to be dug to drain the water off the airstrip.
The initial survey was the first time I had met people with Elephantiasis (Lymphatic filariasis) and leprosy. They were a very isolated people group for many years before the government sent in teachers and medical personnel to live among them. But the biggest changes came through Jack and Isa’s being willing for God to use them in a dark place to bring the Pawaia people to the light.
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