ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns striking similarities and equally striking differences between the Gebusi and the Tangu, two small hinterland Melanesian societies that lay some 400 kilometers distant from each other across the vast bulk of mainland Papua New Guinea. In 1980, the Gebusi of Papua New Guinea's Western Province appeared to be one of the most culturally remote and so-called unacculturated groups in the country. None of the personages were Gebusi rather, they were Papua New Guineans from other parts of the country who had come to bring national and religious enlightenment to the out-of-the-way part of the country. The departure of the Australians, Papua New Guineans from other parts of the country gradually arrived to lead modern institutions in the Gebusi area: a church, school, market and sports league. In the context, the contemporary presence of post-colonial Papua New Guinea officers, teachers, and pastors, resonates with a penumbra of powerful and potentially helpful influences from a modern wider world.
