The preservation of PNG’s culture is a multi-faceted challenge.
The third Toktok Bilong Strongim Nesen focused on PNG’s cultural history, which can be traced back 60,000 years.
The Development Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference, Marie Mondu, spoke of how migration, civilisation and mixed marriages water down PNG’s traditional practices.
“Many children are happily dressed in their traditional wears these days during cultural festivities and what not but in actual reality, when you interview these children, they will have no idea where these shell monies are coming from, what’s their significance, what’s the significance of that particular lead they’re wearing, why is it smelling like this, what’s the story behind this?” said Mondu.
“As Papua New Guineans, I think it is a challenge going back to us now; how do we learn from this and how do we harmonise what’s valuable to us, what we want to keep as our national identity and how best should we respect each of our own tribes, totems, tree spirits and so forth without conflicting or harming another tribal or cultural heritage.”
Mondu further issued the challenge to Papua New Guineans to preserve and respect culture and continue the dialogue with the younger generation.
Sharing similar sentiments was the owner and Operator of Bilum Culture, Sharlene Gawi, who stressed on the need to pass knowledge on.
“Not only just telling the story but making sure that you tell it well, that you take time to listen to what the story is and to keep it in context and pass it on so that the value isn’t lost.”
The discussion event was held at the University of PNG with the theme ‘Cultural heritage in modern PNG: Protecting our values’.
(Development Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference, Marie Mondu)