3 - Ceremonial grounds

Summary

In the Mount Hagen area were beautiful park-like enclosures of ornamental trees and shrubs, surrounding well-kept lawns of fine grass.

E. W. P. Chinnery, Central Ranges of the Mandated Territory, 1934, p. 409

DESCRIPTION

The term which I translate as ceremonial ground is moka pena, ‘open flat area used for making moka’. There is at least one ceremonial ground in each clan territory, laid out in a flat space or along a sloping hill ridge. New ones are constructed from time to time. It is men's work to clear the ground, plant shrubs and trees along its edges, and maintain it in good order.

Individual men plant casuarina trees and bamboos beside the pena, and the planter has the right to use these subsequently. Rows of cordylines are also planted, but individual men do not have exclusive rights over these; clansmen may use the fresh leaves to replenish their rear-coverings occasionally, but the cordylines should not be cut down. Particular types of cordyline are the divination-stuff of numbers of the Hagen tribes, and for other tribes also cordylines are closely associated with ancestral ghosts; so that to cut them down would be an offence against the ghosts. When a small pena is not to be used for a year or so it may be converted into a garden in the meantime; but its cordyline boundary-markers are left standing.

In former times, according to Vicedom (1943–8, vol. I: 150) a new pena was sown with a special grass; and most established pena are in fact pleasantly grassy. Flowers may be planted in bare patches to prevent weeds from taking root.