The smoked mummy of a village chief in Papua New Guinea has been renovated, helping his clan members connect with his spirit in the “ghost world.”

The mummy, also a former shaman and warrior named Moimango, was battered by the elements over the past decades, causing his body to deteriorate. But scientists were able to restore Moimango’s body using materials from the jungle.

The researchers also learned exactly how the smoked mummies were made, said study co-author Ronald Beckett, a professor emeritus and bioanthropologist at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

High above the village of Koke, on a cliff protected by a small overhang, lie the mummified bodies of several deceased members of the Ang clan. The village, in the Aseki region of Papua New Guinea, lies in a remote area between the highlands, which have seen an influx of foreigners due to gold mining, and the coast, which has contact with the outside world through through its ports.

Beckett first learned about the mummies from pH๏τojournalist Ullа Lomann, who had visited Koke several times. The leader of the clan, a man named Gemtasu, wanted to improve the condition of the remains of his father Moimango, who was mummified in the 1950s. Gemtasu hoped that by restoring his father’s body, he could also revive the cultural practice of smoking. mummies, which missionaries had discouraged for decades.

The mummies mark the territory of the ang. Relatives like Gemtasu often consulted their deceased loved ones for advice and included them in celebrations. The ability to see the face of the deceased loved one was critical to this process, Beckett said. According to the ang, large people whose bodies are not cared for will roam the jungle drinking spirits and potentially sabotage hunting or crops, Beckett said.

“The ghost world is something very, very real to them,” Beckett said.

Restoration of mummies

The years had not been kind to Moimango. His jaw was slack and his head was in danger of falling off completely. Lichens had also infiltrated the body and, at one point, a rodent had burrowed into Moimango’s side, making a nest inside, Beckett said.

Beckett and his colleague Andrew Nelson at the University of Western Ontario in Canada wanted the ang to be able to maintain the restorations themselves. Then, in 2008, the team arrived and asked villagers to identify suitable forest restoration materials. “I went to Papua New Guinea with practically nothing more than some examination tools,” Beckett said.

The team used a bark cloth called tap to patch and support body parts, such as the jaw and head, and heated sap from the kumaka tree to use as glue. The team used licenses to impregnate Moimango with a lime-based substance called suca made from crushed shells, which has the same pH as lye. They also touched up the other clay on the body and restored some of the other mummies on the cliff.

The local materials worked remarkably well.

When he saw the final results, “Gemtasu was very happy: he started crying, he started singing, he started dancing, he held my hand,” Beckett said.

Two years later, when the team returned, Moimango was still in good condition and the lichen had not grown back.

Smoking the body

The team also mummified a forest pig to understand how the smoking process worked.

This is how villagers mummified their loved ones: first, they scraped the bodies with a bristly plant, before placing them in a smoke-filled hut for 30 days. a bamboo pipe served as an anal tap to evacuate intestinal contents, and bodily fluids leaked from small holes drilled in the hands and feet that were mᴀssaged by the villagers.

Finally, iron is found in bodies with a form of iron that is found in the body and is considered an element of the body’s protection from mutation. of its element.

Even in the sweltering conditions of Papua New Guinea, which typically speed up the decomposition of corpses, the process worked remarkably well, Beckett said. Smoke creates a hostile environment for bacteria and prevents insects from laying eggs on the body.

The arsenic in smoke also acts as a preservative, Beckett said.

Although the process may seem strange to those who do not know it, the underlying spiritual belief: that the physical remains of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ person are a way of communicating. I ate with them: isn’t that so different from Western mourners who leave flowers on a loved one’s grave or go to a cemetery to talk to their deceased relatives, Beckett said