Tony Swain and Garry Trompf

We are not to forget here the masters of navigation, or owners of canoes, or spiritual sponsors of deep-sea expeditions… During the Hiri journeys of Papuan Motu, when pot-laden lakatoi were sailed to the Gulf to exchange for sago, the most crucial man on board these sturdy vessels was a “holy man” or helaga tauna. He and his wife would be the original sponsors of a given canoe’s voyage: they had to prepare for it with as much fasting and ritual observance as organizational skill, and the holy man had to sit centre-deck on the lakatoi, shut into a windowless shrine for the entire voyage—meditating for success, praying to quieten spirits of wind and waves, and becoming the last person to die should the vessel fall prey to Nara or other “pirates”.

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Originally published in The Religions of Oceania, by Tony Swain and Garry Trompf, Routledge, 1995. Republished here with thanks.