The Strength of the Mamas: Creating and Living in a World of Wonder, Dignity, and Freedom

The Strength of the Mamas: Creating and Living in a World of Wonder, Dignity, and Freedom by Christy Reed A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Peace and Conflict Studies University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2019 by Christy Reed Abstract Mamas in Melanesia are strong. This study explores the way that a group of 18 women, known as “Mamas” in a neighborhood in Melanesia find strength. The study was a qualitative study conducted over a year of intensive research and over an ongoing period of 12 years of relationship with the community. The Mamas’ stories of strength are recorded. They find strength in a spirit of can-ness, in the process of striving with all that you are to overcome, and hard work. Their can-ness and their striving carry them through unbearable hardship and pain. They share their dreams and visions where they find strength, and the adventures of their experiences of travel. This study concludes with a celebration of the way that Melanesian Mamas are “Guardians of Life,” constantly creating celebrations and banquets for their community, even under conditions of overarching violence. ii Acknowledgements Thank you to my advisor, Dr. Jessica Senehi for believing in the power of stories and sharing that belief with her me. Thank you to Dr. Maureen Flaherty for traveling the path of women’s stories and showing me the way. Thank you to Dr. Warren Cariou for honoring the telling of a life. I could not have done this without you all. I am humbled by your wisdom and compassion in your work and in your guidance for me. Thank you. Thank you to my mother, my grandmothers and my aunties, who are heroes. Thank you to my dad and my brother and my sister-in-law and beautiful and brilliant niece and nephew for your never-ending encouragement and for your belief in me when I did not believe in myself. Thank you to my community of Mamas. I do not have words that would encompass my love for and delight and wonder in you. Thank you to my Winnipeg family, who bring me laughter and a place to belong. Thank you to the sisters of my youth, who taught me how to laugh. Thank you to the International Student Graduate Scholarship, the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship, the C.D. Howe Memorial Fellowship for providing the funding for this study. Thank you to the beautiful critters who bless me and bring me joy every day. iii Dedication To my Mom. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introducing the Strength of Papuan Mamas .......................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Living in a “Time of Wonder”: the Context of West Papua................................. 31 Chapter 3: Collective Expressions of Identity and Dignity in Totalitarian Systems ............ 59 Part I: Dreams Deferred: Shadowlands ................................................................... 63 Part II: Exploding Dreams ...................................................................................... 101 Chapter 4: Papuan Mamas in Literature and Media—Guardians of Life and Dignity .... 113 Part I: Biak, Amungme, and Mpur Women: Two Studies and a Story .............. 115 Part II: Practical Rituals of Freedom—Mamas as Economic Providers in Papua ..................................................................................................................................................... 122 Chapter 5: Methodology—An Invitation into “We” ............................................................. 131 Chapter 6: I Can. Sa Bisa ......................................................................................................... 175 Chapter 7: Strength and Work—Berjuang ............................................................................ 196 Chapter 8: The Death of Children and Other Tales of Sadness. .......................................... 220 Chapter 9: Dreams and Stories of Dreams ............................................................................. 247 Chapter 10: Traveling with Mamas—Where Adventure and Welcome Collide ................ 267 Chapter 11: Concluding Thoughts: Banqueting through Terror ........................................ 292 Attachment: Oral Consent Script……………………………………………………………322 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….……..323 v Chapter 1: Introducing the Strength of Papuan Mamas If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all alone, these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again, and now they is asking to do. (Sojourner Truth, 1875, p. 135) Breath assures an ongoing set of relationships that is open, and its connection to speaking, telling, praying, and witnessing only assures the power of story to decolonize spatial discourses by reminding of the connections people have to each other and the life- giving force at work. (Goeman, 2009, p. 187) Women want genuine freedom: to be able to laugh, move, play, and not be afraid. —Alama Mirino, Papuan Woman Activist When I first arrived in the Land of West Papua, I knew little about the sustained violence against indigenous Papuans carried out by the Indonesian military. I only witnessed the laughter, the singing, the neighbourhood gossip, and the evening times of tea and of stories. The stories of this violence were hidden, whispered in darkened rooms, and silenced by a ban on international press. Each day, as the glow of evening fell over the roaring motorcycles on the street where I lived, my neighbors would welcome me to their porches, and we would sit in the waning light, watching traffic, sipping sweet tea, and telling stories. The stories were of the neighborhood at first. Stories of Mama Koinonia’s eccentric husband. Of the feud between Mama Warinuri and Papa Kolala. Of Anita’s teaching career. Each evening, it seemed, the stories were the same, and soon I found myself lulled by familiar tales told and retold. But as the darkness deepened and my time there lengthened, new layers of the same stories emerged. Papa Kolala’s daughter Delila had been shot when soldiers opened fire on the campus in 2002. She was injured, but survived, and Papa Kolala struggled to support Delila and her children. It was this stress that fueled his feud with Mama Warinuri. Mama Koinonia’s husband was not always eccentric, my neighbors told me. He was once a brilliant and courageous preacher, always speaking in defense of his congregation members who were arrested and tortured by the Indonesian military. But after he returned from months of torture, Anita whispered, he was never quite the same. Mama Koinonia laughs now at his antics, but her laughter hides anguish. As the evening deepened, the stories also deepened, and under the covering darkness, Mama Koinonia leaned over and told me, “Julian, we give you these stories for a reason” (personal communication, March 30, 2007). But I alone cannot tell the stories. It is those who own the stories who can tell them most effectively, and so I attempt in this study to work together with my friends to explore and celebrate together the stories and practices of hope and of dignity present in their never-silent voices. What Happened In this study, I asked women in a neighborhood in Lincoln City in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, “Where do you find strength?” They shared their stories and lives in response. In this introductory chapter, I will introduce why I chose to ask this question of women in Lincoln City and why I think the question and the answers of the Mamas matters. In the next chapter, I offer a more complete version of the context. “Where do you find strength?” After living in a particular Lincoln City neighborhood on and off over a period of ten years, I witnessed an undeniable strength among Papuan women. In my proposal, I planned to ask them, “Where do you find strength?” Or, “How do you get through?” These were questions that I lived (see Rilke & Mood, 1994, p. 31) as I lived among 2 them. With these questions, I wanted to honor the strength of my participants, the Mamas as they are called, with whom I have lived and from whom I have learned. Sometimes their answers would be surprising. Mama Matoa, so strong, who built her house alone—felling trees, hand-planing boards, planning and constructing so her two little children could have a home. Mama Matoa, who now, at 60, climbs and trims trees in the dark; who builds fires, and runs like the wind. When I asked her where she found the strength to do all these things, she looked at me and asked, “Am I strong, Julian?” (personal communication, February 20, 2014) Others responded differently, however. Mama Delia says, “And so I say this, Papuan Mamas, they are strong. We are strong. So we must work. Don’t wait for others […]God gives us strength” (personal communication, March 3, 2014). Or they say, like Ibu Georgina, “I get my strength from my ancestors, Julian” (personal communication, November 27, 2013). And others saying some variation of “Ah, Julian. I am strong from my mother, Julian. From my sister. From God.” I honor here the Mamas with my question, and they honor me with their responses. A Valediction Affirming Stories No, just the opposite, it is: I’d like to call them to the witness stand, knowing that what they say will always be bigger than the tapestry I’ll be trying to sew them into (Cixous, Derrida, & Bennington, 2001, p. 23) In his article, “Life-Telling: Indigenous Oral Autobiography and the Performance of Relation,” Warren Cariou (2016) makes the statement that “All humans tell stories, and many of those stories are based upon their own lived experiences” (p. 314). He identifies this as “life- telling” (p. 314), noting, like Jessica Senehi (2002) does in her article “Constructive Storytelling: A Peace Process,” that it is something that everybody does. Cariou (2016) writes of the 3 importance of life-stories told, not merely life-stories written, particularly in Indigenous traditions which value oral culture. He writes, For far too long we have considered storytelling through a Western lens that construes orality as the locus of a series of deficits such as fragility and unverifiability.

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