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A comment on Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea.

Re:Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea by cs702 on Saturday October 31, 2015 @02:08PM (#10483506)
The craziest thing about this is that the perpetrators of these crimes do not seem to be "using their beliefs as an excuse to kill for other reasons." Rather, it appears that long-held beliefs in witchcraft are the reason why the perpetrators are killing. They sincerely believe they're in the right when they burn those women alive!

Warning to readers: the article contains pictures of crowds in villages watching as women accused of witchcraft are tortured before they get burned to death. It's shocking, disgusting, and disturbing.

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Re:Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea by anotherevan on Saturday October 31, 2015 @07:32PM (#10484689)
About 15 years ago, Monica had been a typical PNG wife, caring for her children and her many subsistence gardens, until her father died suddenly from a heart attack. As the eldest child, she was entitled to inherit his house, but her younger brother wanted it badly and accused her of killing their father with witchcraft. Jelasy like his is very often a motivating factor in Highlands witchcraft accusations.

Certainly some are using their beliefs as an excuse to kill for other reasons, manipulating the fear of unwitting participants. As with any and every belief system though-out history, it will be manipulated by some to their own ends.

I agree that it is probable that the majority of perpetrators are behaving out of long-held beliefs though. Beliefs that need to be dismantled.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Witch Burnings in Papua New Guinea by escherplex on Saturday October 31, 2015 @03:33PM (#10483855)
You've got a point. Juxtapose this with contemporary Eastern European corpse mutilation practices which are purported to serve as protection against recently deceased relatives morphing into a vampires and feeding on their kinfolk:

see video (Vampire Legend) at: http://www.pbs.org/topics/history/world-history/

And note in this PBS documentary how the local villagers sanctioned the fugitive's behavior and motives. Curious also how the old 'deviant' burial evidence in Britain and elsewhere imply these same practices have been going on for millennia throughout Europe. This suggests, given suitable context (as in Salem, US not that long ago), such 'unenlightened, uneducated PNG primitives' conditioned behavior could manifest anywhere at any time. /s

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