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Paper short abstract

This paper explores relations between dreams of witchcraft and raskol activity in establishing local ontologies of evil among Kasua people (Papua New Guinea). Its aim is to show that dreaming gives rise to a double polarization process based on the idea of the devil, reconfiguring local antagonisms.

Paper long abstract

Based on a 17-month ethnography amongst Kasua people (Papua New Guinea), this paper explores the social and emotional aftermath of an armed conflict between a Malaysian logging company and “raskols”, criminal groups resorting to violence and kidnapping to extort money. During the beginning of my doctoral ethnographic stay in 2022-2023, a group of Huli raskols entered Kasua territory for the first time in their history. Studying Kasua dreaming ecology, I quickly realized that numerous collected dream narratives referred to raskols and Huli people. When those appeared as dream figures, they were systematically interpreted as signs of Kasua witchcraft, including explicit reference to the Christian notion of the Devil. This paper seeks to investigate how the identification of raskols in dreams as signs of witchcraft contributes to the redefinition of an ontology of evil amongst the Kasua. After a brief contextualization of the armed conflict, dream narratives figuring raskols will be mobilized in conjunction to local discourses about Huli brutality. Their analysis outlines a double process of polarization based on demonization of the Huli people. Not only does dreaming play a major part in stabilizing the image of raskols as the incarnation of evil, but the conflict further generates partial reconciliation of local antagonisms – notably Kasua and neighboring communities with the logging company – through general apprehension and stigmatization of Huli as potential sources of conflict and violence. The aim of this paper is to highlight the extent to which dreaming affects moral arrangements around the figure of the devil.