KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN
IN the entire universe, the myth and symbol of Nokondi is only found in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.
Angels, Homer and the Iliad, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Greek goddesses, the Dancing Wolves of American native people, the Tari myths and so many other beautiful stories are intermittently found and unique to special civilisations.
Leave them alone.
By expurgating our myths as cultural symbols, the Speaker of PNG’s national parliament and the Eastern Highlands Provincial Executive Council are acting just like Pope Urban VIII who condemned Galileo Galilei in 1633. Galileo had said the sun is the centre of the universe and declared that the book of nature was written in the language of mathematics not in biblical terms.
Now, the church realises that Galileo was correct and the Church was wrong, but it is too late. Galileo was forced to recant and spent the rest of his life in the prison of his home.
There are a lot of sponges trying to do the same as Urban VIII in PNG.
If you believe in God, we also do, and therefore equally affirm that we have to be rational like God. There is no need to change what God has put in place.
If you are a black man, remain black. There is no need for you take pills to change the colour of your skin.
If you are a beautiful whale, you are better off in the ocean. You don't need to come out of it.
Likewise, if you are an Eastern Highlander, you are the sum of the 30-40,000 years of survival and have a diligently created culture as a nation (Apo).
Nokondi is part and parcel of your culture.
Why make a spur of the moment decision to backflip because a half-baked, charged up pastor is yelling and disturbing your cognitive power by telling you that you are a product of a pagan culture when the very God you and the pastor believe in is the author of your culture and you?
Have a quiet moment and think again!