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Forest and Demons in the Papua New Guinea Highlands
Author(s) -
Sillitoe Paul
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-9310.1993.tb00177.x
Subject(s) - new guinea , creatures , demon , ambivalence , history , ethnology , rainforest , geography , ecology , archaeology , psychology , natural (archaeology) , art , social psychology , literature , biology
The Wola people of the Southern Highland Province of Papua New Guinea believe that two kinds of demon spirit inhabit the montane forests of their region. They call them saem and iybtit. When people are attacked by these frightening creatures, they are injured or fall sick, and may die; their relatives perform rituals to drive the demons away and promote their recovery. The attitude of the Wola towards demon spirits expresses something of their ambivalent and enigmatic attitudes towards the forest that covers large areas of their region. They are neither innate conservationists nor reckless destroyers of forest, but something more equivocal, an antipathetic combination of both.