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8 Dreams, Death, Spirit World, and Magic
8.1 Dreams and Interpretations
One evening, Ak. saw a white man in a dream who wrote the Ten Commandments on a board in plain view. He awoke and thought a great deal about the meaning of the dream. A few days later, in a soccer game at
Voko school, a youth interfered in his play and Ak. prepared to hit him. However, he thought again about the dream and the commandments which he had seen and instead of hitting the youth, he asked to shake hands
with him and forgave him of the wrong.
Later, in a second dream, he saw a glass bottle. A voice said to him, “If you crack this bottle, the whole thing will shatter.” Again Ak. awoke and thought much about the dream. He realized that this second dream
was related to the previous one about the Ten Commandments. His interpretation was that if he had broken just one of the commandments by hitting the youth during the soccer match, then he would have been just as
responsible for breaking the entire set of commandments. Thinking about this brought tears to his eyes and a great respect for all ten of the commandments.
A friend, Ki., from Ruruvu, walked the thirty minutes or so to our house in Togarao and asked if we had received word back about his chicken project, which we were to check into. He said that he had dreamed that
morning that we had received an answer. We had. Dreams can be very important to the Rotokas man or woman. A person’s occupation can be determined on
the basis of a dream. We would never have had Ta. as a close friend and coworker, if he had not paid heed to a dream. He had seen a road with a fork in it. One path led to successful secular work; the other led to work for
the church. He chose the second, which included translating Scripture into his own language. Vi. observed a young married couple who always fought. The husband threatened the woman with a bow
and arrow through an open window in the house. Vi. wondered why. One night shortly after, he saw in a dream that the couple had thrown their newborn child in a hole and
had stoned it to death. He saw the child’s leg move slightly and he cried out in his sleep. The next morning, someone verified that he had cried out during the night.
Vi. believed what he saw in the dream was true. Being a Christian and concerned for the couple, he went to them and asked them both about the trouble they seemed to be having in their home. They said nothing
about the child and Vi. felt the heaviness of the guilt that was upon them. Instead of confronting them, the young Christian decided to allow God to convict them and bring the whole matter out into the open. He left
them with the word that something was wrong in their lives and that Satan was using it to disrupt their marriage.
Not long after, the husband saw in a dream, water coming into an open hand and forming a body. He asked Vi. about this and received this interpretation: The body is made from water, but life comes from God’s
breath or spirit. When life is destroyed, we spoil God’s work and spirit, which is resident in man. Since the couple maintained their silence about the act he felt they had committed, Vi. finally revealed his
own dream to them. After counselling with them and showing the couple what the Scripture says about taking a life, the consequences, and the forgiveness available from God, the couple did tell of the murder. They had,
in fact, made a promise to each other before the child’s birth to dispose of the baby. In mid-1975, Ak. had a dream in which he heard a voice which told him that the ground was going to
explode poko piro. He didn’t know the meaning of this, nor upon awakening could he discover the source of the man’s voice. He asked Ta. about it, but Ta. said it was one of those things that no one could explain. About
three days later, Mt. Bagana, the volcano just south of the Rotokas villages erupted, and Ak. had his interpretation of the dream. This eruption is described in chapter 2. We heard the explosion and were
impressed by Ak.’s accurate foreknowledge of the event.
Rotokas people believe that dreams not only reveal to men and women the events of the present world, but knowledge about the afterlife, as well. During a dream, the spirit of a man can leave the body and it is able to
reveal where it will dwell after death. The other spirits of the dead are able to move about unrestricted and are responsible to keep the spirit of the dreamer from wandering too far.
Also, in the matter of death, our good friend, David A., was “given” a tune to use during the mourning period of a deceased female relative. He dreamed the tune one Sunday night, and the woman died the next day.
This singsing krai was recorded and is shown on a following page.
86 This is not particularly unusual. While watching a singsing in the village one night, we observed one of the
men leading the singing, followed by the remainder of the group. Shortly after, we were told that this particular man had been “taught” a series of singsing tunes by the ghost of his dead father. The ghost had come to the
man in a dream. David A. also tells of the “nice man” who came to him during dreams from time to time and sat with him
in his house. He had good things to say from Scripture, etc. When he first came, he shook his hand and asked him why he was afraid of him. David A. responded that he wasn’t afraid.
Some old friends
Mourning tune revealed during a dream
David A. also tells of feeling a “snake” around his abdomen during a dream. His body was “tight” and he couldn’t move his arms. Being a godly man, he interpreted this as being a test of his belief in God. He prayed
much and when a man in the dream told him to raise his arms, he did so. At this, David A. was freed from the binding sensation.
Finally, this same man with whom we have worked over the years had a dream which involved the translation program and which included us. Once when we were absent from the village and it appeared that
we might not return to the Rotokas area, he sent a letter to the Director of SIL in Papua New Guinea. In the letter, he pointed out the significance of his dream in which he saw an SIL member put a stream of water on a
“little mountain.” This water, as a spring, came down and from it the Rotokas people drank freely. In his letter, he concluded that, in effect, the spring should be maintained for the spiritual benefit of the people.
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8.2 Death
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