Harry Papua and the Sorcerer's Conviction
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Papua New Guinea, home of some of the last stone age cultures on earth, also seems to have a primitive legal system:
If the latter, then I can (sorta kinda) understand it, although anti-fraud laws should focus more on the fraud and less on the cult — why call it "sorcery" and not just "fraud"?
In any case, hopefully practicing a religion, even a cult, is not by itself a crime in Papua New Guinea.
After all, there's "primitive" and then there's "primitive."
Police in Papua New Guinea have arrested 320 people for practicing sorcery and religious cults, the National newspaper reported Thursday.Now granted this is somewhat confusing: Were the "sorcerers" really be charged with "sorcery," or with some kind of religiously-themed fraud, like any two-bit "psychic fortune teller" here in the U.S. who bilks the ignorant?
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Cargo cults believe that Western goods or cargo, first encountered through missionaries and explorers, are created by ancestral spirits. They have been known to build airstrips in the jungles in the belief that planes would land with cargo.
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"We can invoke blessings for protection, hunting, luck and to increase wealth," said elderly cult leader Erbu Kuriong.
Kuriong said the sorcerers charged for their fortune telling, with the proceeds used to build a home for the group.
If the latter, then I can (sorta kinda) understand it, although anti-fraud laws should focus more on the fraud and less on the cult — why call it "sorcery" and not just "fraud"?
In any case, hopefully practicing a religion, even a cult, is not by itself a crime in Papua New Guinea.
After all, there's "primitive" and then there's "primitive."
Posted by Kip on
3 November 2005
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