The Kampalap people of Siassi Island in Papua New Guinea have unique culture and traditions.According to the Kampalap people, they see Hausman in traditional perspective as one of the speech act.The Hausman has certain norms that the people in the society should follow and these include the women, girls, and children including young boys are not permitted to visit the Hausman.In the Kampalap society and other societies on Siassi Island, the matured men and elderly people are permitted to visit the Hausman.
The importance of Hausman
The housemen or Hausman in Tok Pisin which is the lingua franca of the people of Papua New Guinea, and it is very important institutions where values and norms were taught by elders to sustain the Melanesian people over the decades and centuries.The Kampalap people of Siassi Island of Papua New Guinea political institutions which is the housemen or Hausman were bases of governance, politics, planning of cultural ceremonies, law and order, education, and where social and cultural issues of the society were discussed and resolutions were passed for members of the community to execute.The Hausman is the mere institutions in Kampalap society to addressed political, cultural and social issues to guide people from generation to generation.The governance in Kampalap society of Papua New Guinea was decided in Hausman and it is chaired by chieftains and headmen who maintained the law and order in the society and commanded respect and authority.
Penalty for breaching the speech act
The penalty for someone especially women or children in the society who breach the speech act, the chief of the village use mask man or the Kampalap people called nakanmut in their vernacular.The nakanmut who will act as a police officer and he will demand the relatives of a woman or children to compensate for breach the norms of the Hausman in terms of the bulk of taro, some bunch of banana, two or three pig tasks, five or seven wooden bowls and two or three pigs.
If the relatives of a woman or the children fail their duties to make compensation, then the chief of the society will encourage other mediums such as a sorcery to punish them.They will use supernatural powers curse them for a certain period of time until their relatives realized what is happening, and they will compensate for the breaching the norms of the Hausman.According to the other penalty such as killing using supernatural powers is apply to the relatives of the women or children who breach the norms and their relatives refused to make compensation.Then the chief of the society will encourage to kill him or her.
