Why Is Shame on the Skin?

This was one of the songs sung by women performing a special dance on October 6, 1971 to anticipate and greet the arrival of a hoped-for treasure of cash in the Mount Hagen area of the Western Highlands District, Papua New Guinea. Would the cargo come or not? A large crowd of people who had helped to finance activities in the cult and expected returns for their support soon to materialize had come to watch the men and women of this particular group dance and to see the money revealed. The women sang of their clan leader and of his place, where dozens of red boxes full of money were said to be stored. Because of his claims to have the cargo and to be counting it out, they were dancing now out in the open on the ceremonial ground of the clan, with all eyes upon them, and was on their skins. The dance performed for the cargo, and the cargo cult itself, were an innovation in the area. The dancers' performance and appearance would be taken as a sign of the cult's success or failure, and if it failed all of the people of the group would be deeply embarrassed and would suffer a loss of standing with the groups around. One of the rival big-men in a neighboring clan was already speaking scornfully of their action in decorating up even the old women of the group with bright face-paint and plumes, and pushing treefruits into their mouths to fill out their gaunt cheeks and make them look young and healthy-a hint on his part that he thought the whole cult a piece of elaborate deception which was destined to failure. It is not surprising, then, that the women should feel shy and embarrassed about the public stage and their performance on it for this occasion. The word shame in their song certainly refers to all of this, and in addition it may also refer to the idea that ancestral ghosts were expected to be present, though unseen, at the dance. Such ghosts are thought always to be in the background supporting human dancers at festivals ensuring that they look attractive and that the gifts they give or receive will be sufficient to maintain prestige; and they were crucially involved in the present dance, for it was to them that the people were looking to receive the money-cargo. Before ghosts and other supernatural powers people are expected to feel another kind of shame,