Papua New Guinea: Puri Puri men of Tufi

Tufi Puri Puri Man

To the casual visitor to Papua New Guinea, the impression that the country is deeply religious would be easily gained. Missionaries are common in the country and I have met them in even the most remote locations – once unexpectedly about 2 hours up the Isis River on the remote south coast of New Britain.

But the more exposure I gained to the local Tufi people and how they live, the more I sensed that beneath the external pious appearance was another story related to a belief system that time had painted over.

That system is called Puri Puri, which literally means black magic in the principal Motai dialect, but a more accurate description would be “traditional belief system”. I became quite intrigued by all this and convinced that I must get a better understanding of Puri Puri.

My initial attempts to go deeper on the subject with the local people I met around Tufi were met with embarrassed silences and it quickly became obvious that they really were not comfortable going there…

So I turned to the various expats I knew, starting with Simon Tewson who has spent most of his life in PNG and understands the people & their culture well. From these conversations I learned that the people who actually practice & administer the more potent elements of Puri Puri live apart from the main villages.

In the case of the Fiyogha clan, they live in a small village called Tuvirade, further up in the foothills from the main villages Koje & Sefoa.