There will always be Payback

In PNG, seemingly, no death comes naturally.

Someone has to assume responsibility for a death, and a price – payback – has to be exacted from the person(s) responsible.

The death of a priest due to liver failure resulted in the revenge killing of five people under grisly circumstances - one of the slain because he refused baptism; an act deemed directly attributable to the priest’s demise.

A severely ill infant brought to the hospital subsequently died, that infant’s death in the hospital resulted in the slaying of a male nurse who attempted to revive the baby, and that murder resulted in the subsequent resignations of many needed medical personnel.

The death of a baby due to pneumonia nearly caused the slaying of a religious sister; she tried to revive the child when he stopped breathing and was blamed for causing the child's death when her attempts failed. Fortunately, the assailant was restrained in time.

Payback [1] has also devolved into a system of extortion; where the weak are preyed upon by the strong. When the father of the Diocesan administrative assistant passed away, she and her sister had to buy a pig for their uncle – their father’s brother – as payback. Through some logic known only to him, they had somehow contributed to his death. And as to why their uncle had to be compensated for said ‘offense’ to his brother, one can only guess? They were two women and what could they do but go into debt and pay up.

Payback is sometimes extracted by taking advantage of an opportune death in a family; a chance for siblings, relatives etc. to settle old scores perhaps. Payback caused a mission worker and her family to flee Kiunga after the demise of her mother; her family blamed her for causing the mother’s death, a woman in her seventies, because she had not been a 'good' daughter. A wheelchair bound man – a victim of childhood polio – was blame for causing the death of his nephew; his own brother blamed him for the drowning of his son during a family picnic. Strangely, he was not close to his family and he was not even invited to the picnic. The religious sisters running the service for persons with disabilities had to hide him in the mission library, till his family descended on the library when they found out. After which they got the police to put him in protective custody, in the town jail, until they were able to make arrangements with one of his relatives in a remote village to take him in.

Endnote:

1. Larcom, Shaun. Payback Killings in the New Guinea Islands: Observing the Tip or the Iceberg? At:<http://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/staff/publications/slarcom/tip%20of%20iceberg.pdf> Accessed 14 July 2013