Traditional clothing seen on the Rai Coast

It’s interesting to me how the western world feels the need to put clothes on naked village children. We have this mindset that all children need to wear clothes because that’s obviously appropriate; naked children running around in the world makes us feel sad and is kind of offensive (though we may not admit the latter as a motivator for sending warm clothes to equatorial countries). The same goes for what clothes adults wear and how they wear them. Men wear pants and women wear items that cover all the blush-worthy areas, as we define them. We value clothing and tend to barrel ahead with our “right” views instead of learning about what constitutes modesty for others.

I first started thinking about this when I saw how western clothing translates in a PNG village setting. I stayed with a family on the north coast for five weeks in 2007. They had two sons and two daughters, all of whom stayed more or less fully clothed. The mother and father stayed fully clothed, most of the rest of the villagers stayed fully clothed, and all was right in my world. Then one day I popped over to the family’s house unannounced to ask a question about the meal that night. The area of their home designated for cooking was partially concealed, but open enough to invite visitors. Anyone walking by could see in. As I strolled up and called out to the mother, I heard all manner of scrambling. When she peeked her head around I could tell she was throwing on her shirt and was rather embarrassed. I was confused because being topless in PNG is not uncommon, especially for a mother. Why would she be embarrassed?

After that I started noticing things. I noticed that all the boys in the village wore shorts, even though most of those shorts had a worn out bottom. I noticed the women wearing shirts around me. I noticed the women not wearing shirts in situations where I was not expected to be. I noticed children being dressed in the morning by their parents and then promptly undressing as soon as their parents went to the garden. Overall I noticed that people were trying to communicate that they, too, were respectable by some vague definition of the word they thought I had. I then noticed as time went by that the overtly western cultural rules began to slide and the shirts (gasp!) stayed off.

Based on several articles published about PNG, and general discussions I’ve had with people about life there, it’s obvious that many believe PNG is uncivilized. They base their judgements on what they think a civilized culture should be, and that picture does not include naked children or topless mothers. This mindset over the years, and the cultural hang-ups early missionaries overlaid onto their message, created a legalistic church culture where people are wearing things because that’s what it means to be a Christian. It has created profound confusion about what is right and what is wrong. On surveys, I’ve had many conversations where people expressed their frustration at contradicting rules missionary’s have brought or how missionaries have “changed their mind” about what’s right and wrong. It’s so easy to believe the things we’re teaching aren’t culturally motivated, but so many of them are. Even something as basic in our minds as what defines modesty. Some things just aren’t so black and white as I grew up believing.

PNG is rapidly changing. Part of the change includes the view of clothing and what certain outfits communicate. Regardless of the outcome, I have learned to examine carefully what standards I’m holding up to others. The conversations I’ve had with confused and frustrated Papua New Guineans over early Christian teachings that emphasized a “do this, don’t do that” list based on western cultural norms has further verified in my mind the importance of Bible translation. A major reason they are frustrated is because they haven’t been able to test teachings against Scripture, so they are at the mercy of the western whim. And that is not always a nice whim to be at the mercy of.