MATHIAS KIN
An edited extract from Chapter 3 of ‘A History of Simbu’, a work in progress
KUNDIAWA - “Then we were on a pretty flat space. From that moment we came across the mountains and surveyed the area, I always had this place in mind and also told the others that this could be the station ground.”
That is what the Lutheran missionary Rev Wilhelm wrote after he and his team had climbed the hill from Wara [river] Chimbu to today’s Kundiawa in May 1934 on a pioneering expedition to identify suitable locations for mission stations.
The large team of men, including five other white missionaries, made camp near a big garden where today’s Kundiawa’s nationl works compound stands. This was the garden of chief Bongere of Kamaneku and his family. At the time, the corn was ready to be harvested and the patrol wanted some but could not find the owner.
The people of the area had run away in fear of these strange people or were hiding in the bushes. Bergmann and his team took some corn from the garden and at that exact location left an axe and some shells, covering these valuable items with corn leaves. The next day the expedition moved on west.
When Bongere returned to his garden the next day, he found that some people had walked through it and stolen some corn. At the time he did not locate the axe and shells. He was told by people who had witnessed the event from their hiding places that this strange group had entered his garden and stolen his corn.
On its return trip east, the Lutheran expedition made camp at the same location near Bongere’s garden. This time Bongere was at Keakge village on Tokma mountain and saw the arrival. He stormed into Bergmann’s camp and confronted the ‘thieves’.
Bongere was a giant man and a great warrior, said to fear nobody. Through translators the Lutheran team found out he was the owner of the garden and he was unhappy. They tried to tell him they had left payment but Bongere was not convinced.
The visitors than took him to the exact spot in his garden and uncovered the presents they had left. Bongere could not believe the number of good things he had been given for some ordinary corn. He was also pleased with the white men for their sincerity and honesty. From then on he was good friends with these people, especially their leader Wilhelm Bergmann.
Bergmann had already marked Ega as a location for the series of mission stations planned for the central highlands. After meeting Bongere, his interest in this locality heightened. Before leaving he told Bongere he would return in the near future and build a house on Bongere’s land and live there with him.
Four months later, in September 1934, Bergmann led another team of 45 New Guinean evangelists from the Kate congregation in Finschhafen and three other missionaries from Onerunka near today’s Kainantu – Revds Vicedom, Helbig and Horrolt.
On the evening of 12 September, this team reached the spot marked for a mission station by the earlier expedition. The next day is still marked as the official day the Neuendettelsau Society of Germany established the Ega Lutheran mission station.
From Keakge village on Tokma mountain that morning of 13 September 1934, Bongere saw that his new friends had come back and camped on his land at Ega. He quickly brought down a big white pig and killed it in front of Bergmann and the others.
Then he rubbed tanget leaves in the blood oozing from the pig’s head and planted them in the ground as a symbol that he had officially given this land to Bergmann and the Lutheran Church.
Bergmann and Bongere had consolidated their friendship and the church gradually spread its influence throughout the surrounding tribes as the Ega mission became an important central station for the spread of the Lutheran Church throughout the highlands.
Shortly before Bergmann and his team arrived, the land at Ega, where Kundiawa town is today, owned by the Endugla tribe had been taken over by the Kamaneku in a fight. When the expedition arrived the area was a fighting zone which is why this pleasant place was not permanently settled.
Bergmann, having knowledge of such matters, paid both the Kamaneku and the Endugla leaders for the land, a win-win settlement for all parties.
As Paula Brown - an anthropologist who spent many years among the Chimbu people - wrote much later, the Lutheran settlement had transformed Ega from a “disputed territory” to a “protected frontier”.