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Ongka's Big Moka for World Music and Cultures.mpg

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    [♪]
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    One hundred miles
    off the north coast of Australia
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    is the territory of Papua New Guinea.
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    In the western highlands
    of Papua New Guinea,
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    there are many tribes.
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    One of them is the Kawelka.
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    [pig noises]
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    The most prominent leader, or Big Man,
    of the Kawelka tribe, is Ongka.
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    [pig noises]
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    [speaking to pigs]
    Ash, ash, ash...
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    For five years, the Kawelka tribe,
    driven on by Ongka,
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    have been struggling
    to assemble a huge gift,
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    mainly of pigs, to present
    to a neighboring tribe.
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    For Ongka, assembling
    and giving this gift
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    is more important than
    anything in his life.
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    [pig noises]
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    This film is about why
    Ongka so wanted to do it,
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    and about his efforts
    to bring it off.
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    [pig noises]
    Nah nah nah nah.
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    The Big Man of the tribe who are
    going to receive the gift is Parowa,
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    who is also the local member
    of the National Assembly.
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    One day, this July, Parowa set off
    on his way back home to the Highlands.
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    Parowa knew pretty well what
    the Kawelka were trying to prepare:
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    five or six hundred pigs,
    rare birds, money,
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    tubes of decorating oil, a truck,
    and maybe a motorbike.
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    All his life, Parowa,
    like all Highland men,
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    has been involved
    in the system
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    of receiving gifts and
    later repaying them.
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    These gifts are called moka,
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    and moka is the most important thing
    in the lives of the Highland people.
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    When he got home this summer,
    Parowa thought that Ongka's moka
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    was going to be very soon,
    but that's not how it turned out,
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    and Parowa just had to wait
    until Ongka was ready.
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    [bird noises]
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    [pig noises]
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    Early this summer, after years
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    of scheming and manipulating,
    planning and persuading,
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    Ongka began to feel that he might finally
    be able to bring off his big moka,
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    and that it could be the
    biggest moka ever given.
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    [pig noises]
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    The reason why Ongka
    so wanted to give his big moka
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    is that only by giving can he earn fame
    and status for his tribe and for himself.
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    In the West, you can
    get status lots of ways:
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    from money, from success,
    from your job, your possessions.
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    The only way Ongka can get status
    is to outdo his fellow men in moka,
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    to overwhelm them publicly with
    the sheer size of the gift that he gives.
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    It's an awful lot of work
    to organize a big gift,
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    and Ongka needed the cooperation
    of a lot of people.
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    Big men have no authority
    over their tribesmen.
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    Ongka cannot order people around.
    He can only persuade.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    Ongka gave them a favorite speech,
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    in which he told them to stop
    fiddling about in their gardens,
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    to stop drinking beer and
    wasting time with women,
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    and to get on with it.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    "What you are supposed to be doing,"
    he said,
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    "is getting pigs ready for the moka,
    not sitting around eating them."
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    The Kawelka are a small tribe,
    about a thousand people.
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    All around are other tribes,
    some allies, some enemies.
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    There are no villages,
    just scattered settlements,
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    around which Ongka plodded,
    bringing news, checking on progress,
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    and trying to set a date
    for the big moka.
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    The date is always a problem.
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    Big men compete for
    the status of fixing the date,
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    and a lot of conspiring goes on.
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    [whispering Kawelkan language]
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    Ongka lives in his men's house,
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    five minutes away from the house
    of his favorite wife, Rumbakel.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    Ongka has four wives
    and nine children,
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    but he talks rather wearily about
    trying to manage more than one wife,
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    and only Rumbakel
    now looks after pigs for him.
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    Ongka talked endlessly about pigs.
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    He said that pigs are the
    only worthwhile thing,
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    but if money looks after white people,
    pigs look after them.
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    You have to have pigs
    for whatever you want to do.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    The next day, Ongka's
    father-in-law, Undamba,
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    had some pigs staked out
    for him to see,
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    returns on the investment
    Ongka had made with him.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    If Ongka was satisfied,
    these pigs would be given to him later,
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    at a small moka which
    would feed into Ongka's big one.
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    It was not as many as Ongka
    had hoped, but it was a start.
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    Pigs have always been important.
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    Ongka's father-in-law
    told us about the old--
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    Although Ongka had now been
    promised pigs by his father-in-law,
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    and by other men that he'd invested with,
    the small moka ceremonies
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    at which he would actually
    receive the pigs still had to happen,
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    and Ongka started to dress up
    for the first of these.
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    Before the Australians
    pacified the area in the 1940s,
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    Ongka too fought against his enemy tribes,
    and sometimes against his allies.
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    Big men planned the fighting, and the
    peace, and the pig-givings that followed.
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    Big men have always
    been especially vulnerable.
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    Ongka has many stories
    about attacks upon himself,
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    including one about how, one night,
    he was about to visit his lavatory hut.
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    As he walked towards it,
    he sensed his enemy lying in wait.
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    Ongka hid in a nearby bush and watched
    while his enemies crept up
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    and drove their spear through the walls,
    thinking they'd got him inside.
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    Ongka, dressed in his feathers,
    set off for the first small moka
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    that would feed pigs into the system.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    While the pigs
    are tied up in the shade,
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    the donors put on their
    bird-of-paradise feathers
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    and dance to celebrate
    their achievement.
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    [drum beat]
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    [drum beat, singing]
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    Who gets what is all
    worked out beforehand,
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    but the pigs are inspected
    and counted again, usually by Ongka.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    The donors walk down the line of stakes,
    shouting out the name of the man
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    who will receive the pig
    that will be tied to it.
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    The correct pig is then brought on
    and tied to its allotted stake.
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    Disputes about who gets what should,
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    at least in theory,
    have been worked out before.
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    [pigs sqealing]
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    Before the pigs are taken away,
    men make speeches of a special kind,
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    full of allusions and complex metaphors,
    a whole language of their own.
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    [speaking in Kawelkan language]
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    Speech-making is Ongka's great skill.
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    [speaking loudly in Kawelkan language]
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    At one stage in his speech,
    Ongka said,
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    the men's house had fallen down,
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    the young girl's breasts had fallen,
    the young man's beard grew long,
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    but now that you've given these pigs,
    I shall marry the young girl,
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    find a wife for the young man,
    and I shall build the men's house again.
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    Ongka got one pig
    and his fellow tribesmen got the rest,
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    all to be fed into the big moka.
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    Ongka has a surprising quantity of money,
    $1,800 Australian dollars,
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    sitting in the Mount Hagen Savings Bank
    at 3 3/4 percent interest,
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    but, highly conscious
    of the value of money,
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    he refused to pay
    to put his pig on a truck,
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    and walked it the twelve miles home.
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    [rhythmic drumming and whistling]
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    [singing]
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    Three weeks later, another of
    the small mokas took place,
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    and fed in 55 more pigs
    for the big moka.
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    Ongka supervised the dancers
    to make sure they would perform well
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    when the big moka came.
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    [speaking Kawelkan language]
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    [drumming and whistling]
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    [singing]
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    At this small moka,
    there was money as well as pigs.
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    Money, Australian dollars,
    comes almost entirely from coffee,
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    which they grow and sell
    to the coffee companies in Mount Hagen.
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    Until ten years ago,
    pearl shells were used in moka,
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    but now shells have been
    replaced by paper dollars,
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    and a big pig is now worth
    about 250 dollars, or 140 pounds.
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    [pigs squealing]
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    [drumming and singing]
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    This time it was a ritual war charge
    in which extra pigs
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    were brought on as a surprise,
    to get extra prestige.
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    [speaking in Kawelkan language]
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    In Ongka's enemy tribe,
    a Big Man died suddenly.
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    [singing]
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    If a man, especially a Big Man,
    dies suddenly,
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    it's always thought
    he was killed by sorcery,
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    and the men charge in anger
    against the enemy
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    who must have
    performed the sorcery.
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    [singing]
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    In their song, the women sang,
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    "Oh my father, oh my father,
    whom shall I turn to now?"
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    In their song, the men sang,
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    "Oh my brother, oh my brother,
    whom shall I live with now?"
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    [singing]
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    As the day wore on,
    visitors brought news
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    of Kawelka men
    of Ongka's group
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    who had been heard singing,
    drunk, in a truck.
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    People said,
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    "It must be our Kawelka enemies
    who killed our Big Man by sorcery,"
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    that they were singing
    because they were pleased,
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    and there began to be talk of
    going down to burn Kawelka houses.
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    This sort of payment can
    become the basis of a moka,
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    and the moka sequence in which Ongka
    is involved began in this sort of way,
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    as a payment of pigs
    for deaths in tribal fighting.
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    Later, more pigs were returned, and
    the to-and-fro exchanges of a moka began.
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    The funeral held everything up.
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    For three weeks, until the mourning
    was over, the Kawelka were uneasy.
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    There were no mokas, in case
    they antagonized the dead man's tribe.
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    [shouting]
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    Eventually, the next small moka
    did happen,
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    and Ongka was given the pigs
    promised by his father-in-law,
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    but they didn't decorate or dance
    out of respect for the dead man.
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    [speaking in Kawelka language]
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    Ongka did rather better than expected.
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    Eighty pigs were given,
    and Ongka got half of them.
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    Ongka was very happy,
    but more pigs meant more work,
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    and the pressure was really on him,
    and even more on Rumbakel,
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    to hand the pigs on.
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    Rumbakel had no
    sweet potatoes left.
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    They had to find them
    wherever they could.
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    At night, with no more
    room for pigs inside,
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    someone had to
    sleep out with them.
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    Ongka even found an extra wife,
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    a widow whose greatest attraction
    was her capacity for work.
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    [Speaking to pigs]
    Ash, ash, ash...
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    [pigs noises]
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    Before the big moka could happen,
    there were still three small mokas to go.
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    Each one meant more pigs and
    mounting pressure to pass them on.
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    [singing, drumming]
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    [pigs squealing]
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    As the big moka got closer,
    the pressure on Rumbakel got worse.
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    [speaking Kewelka language]
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    The last few pigs were coming in.
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    Ongka began to talk about going down
    to buy cows as an extra surprise.
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    The big moka was very close.
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    [pigs squealing]
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    Moka isn't just about pigs;
    it's about all kinds of things.
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    The Kawelka say that
    it keeps the peace;
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    it's a way of making
    a name for yourself;
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    it holds the tribe together;
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    it's the big social event.
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    On a more general level,
    moka is a system, a framework.
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    All over the world, people operate
    within some kind of framework,
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    and moka is one of them.
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    There's one more thing to do before
    the big moka could happen the next day.
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    The money they had collected
    to give to Parowa and his tribe
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    had to be spread out and counted.
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    They got 10,000 Australian dollars,
    about five and a half thousand pounds.
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    [crowd talking]
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    Parowa, a member of the assembly,
    often says it's time they gave up moka,
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    but he sat, watching the piles
    of money mounting up.
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    When we asked Ongka what he'd do
    if Parowa didn't one day return the moka,
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    Ongka said he'd take him
    behind a bush and slit his throat,
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    but even if he did
    lose his investment,
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    he could never lose the glory
    of having given it.
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    Then, it happened.
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    Suddenly, Ongka's rival, Rima,
    did what he always said he'd do,
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    and upset the timing of the moka.
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    Rima put a whisper through the crowd
    that it was his group
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    who had killed the
    Big Man by sorcery.
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    It's not the kind of thing
    you admit to in public,
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    but it had the effect he wanted.
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    Broke up in confusion,
    the people angry at Rima
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    for stirring up old troubles.
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    Ulka, married into the dead man's tribe,
    came down in a war charge to get Rima.
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    [people shouting]
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    On their way,
    they came past Ongka's.
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    To try and stop them,
    Ongka sat down in the road.
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    [people shouting]
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    Ongka told them that
    they must stop this talk of fighting,
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    that when the Europeans first came,
    they'd put ideas of fighting
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    down the lavatory hole,
    and that's where they should stay.
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    [speaking Kawelka language]
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    He told them it was just a hitch, that
    they would finish the big moka together.
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    Ongka, with no power to stop them,
    did his best to persuade them.
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    Some listened;
    some set off for Rima's.
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    [people shouting]
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    The next day, there was no big moka.
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    Rima went into hiding.
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    A few nights later,
    they killed four of his pigs.
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    Parowa had been waiting three months,
    but now he had to go back to the Assembly
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    to discuss the new constitution for
    the independence of Papua New Guinea.
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    Parowa was getting used to delays.
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    The big moka had originally
    been planned for a year ago,
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    and Ongka and his group had got as far
    as buying a truck as part of their gift.
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    Parowa said there was no point
    in the truck rotting away
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    until the big moka did happen, and that he
    might as well use it in the meantime.
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    At the end of his moka speech,
    Ongka said,
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    "Now that I have given you
    all these things, I have won.
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    I have knocked you down
    by giving so much."
Title:
Ongka's Big Moka for World Music and Cultures.mpg
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
35:24

English subtitles

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