FT263

I lived and worked in Papua New Guinea (PNG) from 2003 to 2008. For the first three years, I was working at the University of PNG (UPNG) on a large rural estate about 5km north-west of the capital, Port Moresby. PNG has many old traditional beliefs about the supernatural – sanguma (sorcery) and puri puri (magic) – and I heard many tales of the power of both and many strange things happening. The sad thing is that some of these beliefs are so strongly held that to this day there are regular beatings, tortures and murders of people accused of being witches.