Yali movement

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yali Movement (also: Yali Letub Movement ) was a cultic movement between 1946 and 1955, starting from the Rai coast in Papua New Guinea . It began as a cargo cult under its leader Yali Singina and gradually changed to a religion from 1948 onwards . The movement emerged under the impression of previous war experiences, but also developed demanding, social and political elements that opposed the colonial monopoly of power and demanded self-administration and economic participation. In the hope of being able to bring about a change in the existing conditions and to lead Papua out of poverty, the orientation was partly clearly anti-missionary , partly millenarian and expectant , thus adhering to the belief in the near end of the present world. It was hoped that Yali Singina would lead Papua New Guinea into an era of industrial prosperity.

history

The movement was able to develop from 1939/1940 because it was tolerated by the Australian administration and allowed the patrols formed by Yali Singina . For the native Yali, who returned from the war as a sergeant major , it turned out to be beneficial that he was even commissioned by the Australian side to promote government reconstruction programs in the northern part of Madang province . Since Yali had cooperated with the rulers as an auxiliary policeman in the region during the colonial period, but later clearly positioned himself against colonialism out of disappointment, people were aware of his great influence in his region of origin on the Rai coast, so that they formed around him Let movement go.

The Letub cult was initially a traditional cult. The traditional creation myth was mixed with elements of the biblical story about the disinheritance of Noach's son Ham . This cult approach explained why the whites owned the cargo and the Papuans didn't. In the mid-1940s, myths were circulating which prophesied large quantities of European industrial goods ( cargo ) for Papua New Guinea and a high standard of living associated with them. Missionaries as well as administrative officials registered the associated activities of the locals and coined the term cargo cult . Yali initially did not attach any importance to this. In 1946, however, in his disappointment with Christianity and the whites, he became a cargo demagogue.

The anthropologist Peter Lawrence has been studying these phenomena in depth since the 1950s . He traced several successive phases of cargo beliefs back to 1871. The Yali movement manifested a climax, because through it the Tambaran cult for the veneration of the ancestral spirits , which seemed to have been abandoned by missionary influences, but with the idea of ​​material-worldly things - such as acceptable goods produced overseas - was evoked through rites .

Yali Singina and the followers from his village of Sor , who had been evangelized by the Catholic Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) since the 1930s , and the neighbors from the newly built village of Yabilol performed rites in which the houses were decorated and food offerings were invoked were offered by deities and spirits of the dead. For months - also in coastal and mountain regions that belonged to the catchment area of ​​various Lutheran congregations - gabu ceremonies (nightly dance festivals with sound tube brass music) were carried out to commission the ancestral spirits. The Australian authorities suspected violations of the cargo cult activities and thus negative effects on the mission activities by the official patrols, which they were right. Peter Lawrence stated:

"At each village, he gave an address of roughly the same kind as already described, urging the people to abondon Christianity and receive the old region with the aim of getting cargo"

Other instructions of the Yali had no echoes of cargo cults . They consisted of organizing and active processes. Many residents lived in small hamlets. In his "training courses" he instructed people to come together and to settle in larger villages. Care should be taken to create a harmonious village image and hygienic conditions, because on the occasion of a trip to Australia he got to know the hygienic living conditions of whites, which he declared as a standard of order. Conventional feuds, which generate quarrels, struggles and harm magic, should be abandoned. Own agricultural products were to be sold on markets that had to be organized. A supervised education and training system should promote education and market value. Yali Singina exceeded his legal powers. His own army and police ( bos boi ) made it easier for him to discipline him.

Condemnation of Yalis

In 1950, Yali was prosecuted by the highest court in Medang for unauthorized judicial powers. The allegation was that he had sentenced several people to prison and also incited them to rape a woman . The sentence was 6 months for deprivation of liberty and 6 years for the rape offense. In 1955 he came back early from prison. He had served his imprisonment in Lae . Contrary to the hopes of Australia, the crowd of his supporters had increased and soon there were again visitors from remote regions of the Madang province in the hometown of Yali Singinas.

The further development of the Yali movement

The teachings preached by Yali were obeyed like laws. So-called lo bos ( lawyers ) monitored the lo bilong Yali . The introduced flower ritual led to plana meri , a special cult of the flower women. This custom, cultivated in the 1940s, culminated in the fact that sexual intercourse with Yali Singina became an insignia of special dignity.

Political career

Yali's attempts to pursue a political career by running for the House of Assembly in the national elections in 1964 and 1968 failed. The fact that the state achieved its independence in 1975 was nevertheless attributed to Yali Singina. Two more movements were launched after his death.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Mückler, Introduction to the Ethnology of Oceania ( Memento from September 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Road Belong Cargo, A Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District New Guinea, Manchester Melbourne 1964
  3. ↑ Patrol Reports, DR Prowse Patrol Reports 3/1946, Appendix "E"
  4. ↑ cf. the myths documented by Lawrence (1964) for the south and by Burridge (1960) for the north of Madang Province
  5. ↑ See especially Worsley (1957) on Melanesian cargo cults and Jarvie (1972) on the definition of the term
  6. ↑ The Yali Letub Movement accessed 1 July 2012
  7. ↑ a b c d e Elfriede Herrmann, The burden of the past, efforts to remember the Yali movement , in: Jürg Wassmann, Farewell to the Past , pp. 53–58
  8. ↑ Lawrence (1964: 213,214)
  9. ↑ National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Waigani: CA 35/6/6 Department of Government Secretary, Subject: Complaint Re Native Yali

Web links to the person Yali Singina

literature

  • Elfriede Hermann, The Last of the Past, Efforts to Remember the Yali Movement , in Jürg Wassmann (ed.), Farewell to the Past (Ethnological Reports from the Finisterre Mountains in Papua New Guinea, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-496 -00496-7 )
  • Kenelm Burridge : New Heaven, New Earth. A Study of Millenarian Activities. Oxford 1969
  • Adolphus Peter Elkin : Social anthropology in Melanesia: a review of research. Oxford University Press, London 1953
  • Peter Worsley : The trumpet will sound. Cargo cults in Melanesia. Frankfurt am Main 1973
  • Friedrich Steinbauer : Melanesian cargo cults. New religious salvation movements in the South Seas. Delp, Munich 1971
  • Holger Jebens, Kago and Kastom: On the relationship between cultural perception of others and of self in West New Britain (Papua New Guinea) , 2007