DaySpring church has the wonderful motto “Sacred and Simple.” Part of that simplicity is silence, but that is rare in our culture. We are daily confronted with various kinds of noise: shouting, yelling, clamor, racket, commotion, even an uproar—you get the picture: life is most often not silent or quiet and certainly not sacred. Someone or something is trying to get our attention by making a noise. The more unusual and louder the noise, the more likely it is to get our attention. Here are some examples:
A family feud
Your parents argued, you and your siblings argued and fought, some neighbors fought and yelled, Cain killed Abel, Paul and Barnabas can’t agree about John Mark and separated, and so on. In the village where we lived in Papua New Guinea, the Ekerepa clan and the Nemola clan were traditional enemies. In the U.S., The Hatfields and McCoys are remembered for their ongoing bad blood. Politicians hold grudges. There are disputes and hostility over theology. Pick a subject and we can find a disagreement and it is most often loud.
Fights, battles, disputes, it doesn’t matter the name or the degree of animosity implied—the world is full of it. I suppose there are “quiet quarrels” and “dignified disputes” but, in general, quarrels are noisy and lead to cursing the enemy, wishing to kill the enemy, and so on. David asked God to break his enemy’s teeth (Ps 58.6), to make them disappear like water draining away (58.7), to turn them into snails that dissolve in the slime (58.8), to cut them down like weeds and blow them away (58.9), and those were just some of his calmer curses.
Information
In the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, the men yodeled to pass information. A man up in the forest might be stripping bark from a tree. It makes noise and a man down in the village doesn’t like it and yells: “You, up there making the noise garo garo with the bark, my daughter has died.” So, the information is chastisement as well—respect the dead.
A government officer is coming to inspect the village and give directions and information to the people. Long before he arrives in his Landover, the men have signaled his progression along the road by yodeling from hilltop to hilltop, and from valley to hilltop; “The kiap [government officer] is coming, get everyone together.” The officer is pleased and amazed that people are there to meet him—this was supposed to be a surprise visit.
Yodeling is not noise, but it gets your attention: Once when we were in England and separated at Windsor Castle, Joice saw me in the distance (with hundreds of other people) so she got up on a small stone wall and yodeled in the Kewa language: “Karl-yo, here I am.” I turned immediately and walked towards the voice. As a sheep, I heard the voice of the shepherd.
A celebration
But loud noise doesn’t always mean that there is trouble. The millions of angels singing around the throne are obviously happy and they certainly make a lot of noise.
Come with me to Papua New Guinea, to a village in the Southern Highland Province where people are preparing for a feast. Long before daybreak we hear people chopping wood, others moving about and soon there is the buzz of voices, including shouting and yelling. Earth pits have been dug and soon the stones will be heated and made ready for the food. In the meantime, there are thumps and squeals as the men move systematically along a line of posts where pigs are tied. The pigs are clubbed, pulled squealing and half-dead to the fires where their hair is singed. Butchering takes place, meat is prepared by wrapping it in banana leaves, along with sweet potato, greens, ferns, and other items. There is excitement everywhere and it will be that way for days. Once the dancing begins there will be competitive singing, taunts and even insults will fly around. But the culmination of the feast will be when the big men, the important men, shout taunts and insults: “Do you remember when the cockatoos were scattered along the ridges of Malue and ran for shelter? When flocks of doves drove away the angry birds? Do you hear this?” Interpret the metaphors and you will understand that they are talking about past battles.
Mock warfare and fights may follow, but no one will deliberately swing an ax or shoot an arrow in anger. Why? Because it will disrupt the festivities before the pork is distributed. Instead, the singing will go on: the men forming columns and singing antiphonally, the women with fertility dances, the strangers in circle dances, hopping up and down and yelling and yodeling.
Finally, it is time to distribute the pork, settle long-standing debts and allow the big men to display how important they are. For they alone are rich enough to climb to the platforms and yell the names of the recipients. “Usa Kalo, nena ogesi mena abi mea,” (Usa Karl, come and get your little piece of pig) the man says, even as gives me a substantial cut. The more you can give away the more important you become, and it is no time to be ashamed of your position.
This is all taking place at the community dance grounds, the place of gathering, the “place in the clear” as it is called and the shouting, yelling and pork distribution are a large part of the cultural event. Like the Dallas Cowboys playing the Philadelphia Eagles, there is a lot of personal ambition and pride at stake and the Dallas area clan takes it as seriously as the Nemola clan in the Southern Highlands.
The shouts can be competitive, one team against another, one nation against another, one person against another, and to gain advantage there is shouting and noise.
[To be continued]
Karl Franklin
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