Your 4 year old daughter or a husband? A glimpse at marriage for a widow…

I was in the canoe – headed back into Wabuku for the first time in seven months – and culture was happening before I made it ‘home’. We had to stop in Bayyo – a village at the mouth of our river where it meets the Sepik river. Several ladies from this village had married men from Wabuku. Because of their location and the intermarrying, we’ve formed a relationship with the people there and see them coming or going – as well as visits they make to our village. Maria, one of the Bayyo ladies, was married to one of our Wabuku men before he died last August. My coworker, Elias, told me that Maria and another of our widows had just married our two village widowers the week before. Maria was one of them but our guys hadn’t asked permission of her clan so Bayyo was not happy about this little arrangement. In tribal culture here, they do an exchange system for marriage. If a guy wants to marry a girl, he has to have a sister to give to the potential bride’s brother. If he doesn’t have an exchange (a sister to give) then the parents of the girl may still be willing to give the girl to him in marriage – for money or a bride price. The brothers of Maria’s deceased husband had already agreed to give Maria to Matiu in marriage without talking to the Bayyo men so her Bayyo family members were mad. They wanted an exchange for her – even though it was a second marriage – and money. That’s the background so that you can understand the scene that I’m about to describe.

We stopped in Bayyo to pick up Maria and her three kids – two boys and a girl, to take them back to Wabuku. Most of the village had come out to the canoe – I was greeting the ones that I knew and shaking the hands of all the kids surrounding me. Maria came out carrying her little girl and had already gotten in the canoe when her brother and sister came towards her with a big stick and a machete. They were trying to rip the daughter out of her arms – threatening Maria with the knife and stick. She had her own stick and was trying to hold on to her daughter and fight them off at the same time. They weren’t trying to hit the daughter – just Maria but the daughter was crying and her little arms were being pulled by the sister while the brother struggled with the Maria. I sat there with tears in my eyes – trying not to lose it as I watched this heart-wrenching scene. People were laughing and more and more were helping the sister and brother try to pull the child away from her mother. This was the reality of tribal life – hitting me between the eyes before I hit the shore of my own village. This went on for 10 minutes or so and finally they were able to get the child away from the mother – although she got a few punches thrown in against her brother with her fist and the stick she held. It was so sad. Neither of them came to Wabuku – she sent her two boys up to stay with their uncles but she stayed in Bayyo with her daughter. The boys sat in the canoe – at times being told by the Wabuku folks to lay down so that other Bayyo family members wouldn’t see them as we passed them on the river.

Marriage and the exchange system is a huge thing here. And add to that their fear of sorcery and how any type of dispute opens the door for sorcery to come in and kill someone, this was a huge ordeal. The Bayyo folks were mad – they had a ‘hevi’ (dispute) with some of our Wabuku men so that clan was especially mad at the new husband until the dispute could be settled. The new husband had to pay a ‘bone price’ (literal translation) to the brothers of the dead husband for taking his widow. Now he had to pay Maria’s family a bride price for her as well. Until all of that was settled, the brothers were extremely afraid of sorcery. These guys got mad and grabbed bows and spears to threaten the new husband, Matiu – to push him into paying this money so that there were no disputes. It was an interesting week as I listened to these two brothers yell and scream at Matiu – although we knew that the threatening was all a sort of posturing. They act like they’re going to fight but it’s all for show really - but it does get the point across to the other guy.

A few days after I arrived back in our village, Maria had run away from Bayyo and come up to Wabuku. She’d left her daughter in Bayyo and run away to be with her new husband. She and Matiu took off to another village to get money from other clans to pay the bride price and bone price to settle these issues. Last Saturday, the Bayyo men came up and had a meeting with the deceased husband’s brothers and the new husband – and most of our village – to settle the dispute. The daughter would stay in Bayyo as Maria’s exchange – and be raised by her family members and when she was old enough, she’d marry a Bayyo man. Matiu paid his money to Maria’s family and everyone was happy, except Maria’s oldest son. He was mad and throwing a fit that his sister would remain in Bayyo. He threatened his mom with spears and sticks – screaming and crying that she had gotten a new husband and that his sister would stay and marry in Bayyo. Folks said that he was mad because his sister wouldn’t return to Wabuku – and some said that he was mad because he didn’t have an ‘exchange’ now – so when it’s time for him to marry, he won’t have a sister to give. Sad all the way around. The mother’s fine to have a new husband but give up her 4 year old daughter so that she can have this new husband. Would you be willing to give up your 4 year old for a husband? It’s hard for me to fathom that a mother could give up her child – to be raised by family in another village so that she could remarry but then I wasn’t born here – and it’s not my custom. (We won’t get into the things that are acceptable in our culture, ie abortion and abandoned children, etc.) That’s just the way it is…