The Baháʼí Faith in Papua New Guinea begins after 1916 with a mention by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, that Baháʼís should take the religion there. The first Baháʼís moved there (what Baháʼís mean by "pioneering") in Papua New Guinea arrived there in 1954. With local converts the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1958. The first National Spiritual Assembly was then elected in 1969. According to the census of 2000 showed that the number of Baháʼís does not exceed 21,000. But the Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated three times more Baháʼís at 200,000 or 6% of the nation were Baháʼís in 2015. Either way, it is the largest minority religion in Papua New Guinea.
Early days
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan The first mention by the religion of the region happened during its rule by Australia, while it was known as the Territory of Papua. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the religion from 1892 to 1921, mentioned it among the places Baháʼís should take the religion to when he wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916–1917; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the tablets mentioned taking the Baha'i Faith to Papua New Guinea and was written on April 11, 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919—after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. These tablets were translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 1919.
(Tablet 7) "A party speaking their languages, severed, holy, sanctified and filled with the love of God, must turn their faces to and travel through the three great island groups of the Pacific Ocean—Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and the islands attached to these groups, such as New Guinea, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Philippine Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, Bismarck Archipelago, Ceram, Celebes, Friendly Islands, Samoa Islands, Society Islands, Caroline Islands, Low Archipelago, Marquesas, Hawaiian Islands, Gilbert Islands, Moluccas, Marshall Islands, Timor and the other islands. With hearts overflowing with the love of God, with tongues commemorating the mention of God, with eyes turned to the Kingdom of God, they must deliver the glad tidings of the manifestation of the Lord of Hosts to all the people. Know ye of a certainty that whatever gathering ye enter, the waves of the Holy Spirit are surging over it, and the heavenly grace of the Blessed Beauty encompasseth that gathering."
Beginnings A Baháʼí is known to have been on the island by 1953. It is also known that Mildred Mottahedeh visited while she traveled through the area of the southern Pacific. The first to take up residence by long term pioneering was Violet Hoehnke in 1954. For this service she was named a Knight of Baha'u'llah by then head of the religion, Shoghi Effendi.
The religion soon had great appeal to Nalik people who felt it more in tune with their traditional understandings compared to the teachings of Christian evangelical missionaries. Apelis Mazakmat, the first Malik to join the religion, met Hoehnke and was attracted by the Baháʼí teaching of racial equality, and converted early in 1956 after learning more about it from Rodney Hancock. Australian norms and laws of the time enforced a separation between the races. Hancock was detained for mixing with black skinned indigenous peoples on several occasions and was subsequently deported because he stayed overnight in local villages without the permission of the colonial authorities.
Most significantly, according to scholarly review, was that whereas Christian missionaries openly opposed traditional funerary art and performances, the Baháʼís encouraged their production as a form of worship. Thus while Nalik Baháʼís are regarded by other Naliks as arbiters of traditional knowledge and practices, the Christian missions and their followers are seen as antagonistic to kastom, a Pidgin English word used to refer to traditional culture because of their negative stance on ritual image production.
These differences were perceived by Mazakmat who returned home and promulgated the religion despite resistance from the Catholic and Methodist missions. He met up with an old friend, Michael Homerang, who was a highly respected malanggan carver and clan leader (maimai) in the village of Madina, on the north shore of New Ireland Province in the far north east. Momerang later said "I saw a white man and woman come to my village and sit down to eat and talk with us. They even slept in our houses. ... Only the Almight can make this happen..." Then they met with clan leaders and elders of the community and early in 1958 there were a further 10 conversions who elected the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of Papua New Guinea, followed by 30–40 more converts over the next four years in two villages. 1958 is considered the founding year of the Baháʼí community in Papua New Guinea. Representatives from Papua and New Guinea each (the country was then administered separately) attended the 1958 conference in Australia on the promulgation of the religion.
According to local Naliks a delegation of missionaries threatened former Methodists with damnation, monetary fines, and expulsion from the Church and when a fire was started in Madina's Baháʼí Center it was blamed on arsonists loyal to the Methodist mission. These and other documented events frightened away many newly converted Baháʼís, who returned to the Methodist mission. For other Bahaʼis, these actions simply consolidated their belief that they were a persecuted religious group echoing the suffering of the early history of the religion and persecution suffered in Iran.
Forming a national community The decoration of Baháʼí centers and practices of sharing of stories of the history of the religion became infused with mixtures of Baháʼí and Nalik symbology while Baháʼís moving to the country learned to appreciate indigenous culture's orientation to "...develop a view of life that was not simply confined to their own surroundings and necessities, but rather was a cosmic perspective of life as a whole." In all some hundred and fifty Baháʼís assisted the development of a community numbered in the thousands and Hoehnke carried on a correspondence with over a hundred letters.
The first summer school on the religion was held in the spring of 1965 with class attendance averaging 80 people followed by a second in December 1965. The classed included the first Baháʼís from another village of New Ireland and Morobe Province of New Guinea while Hoebneke, newly appointed as an Auxiliary Board member, emphasized the history of the religion as well as a view on comparative religion—all carried out in Pidgin English—along with a mock assembly meeting, reviews of Baháʼí laws, prayers, and a chance to discuss the concerns of the people of the region.
In 1965 Tom Kabu became the first Papuan Baháʼí. Approximately twenty Papuans became Baháʼís in Port Moresby immediately after Kabu who were from the Baimuru area. Kabu traveled among many villages presenting the religion. Yale University professor Charles Forman analyzed religious trends across the Pacific Islands and attributes what he termed the surprising growth of the Baháʼí Faith across Micronesia was partly due to a certain amount of response from some youths of wider experience and education as well as from some village folk among whom Baháʼís settled. Probably the greatest single increase, in his view, came in 1966 with this effort as Kabu was a leader of an important modernising movement in the Purari River area of Papua. Kabu died in 1969 from tuberculosis after being sick about a year.
The first members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Papua New Guinea were elected in 1969. Its membership was: John Francis, Noel Bluett, David Podger, Sue Podger, Margaret Bluett, Michael Homerang, Rodney Hancock, Frank Wyss and Gas Dau. There were 31 delegates at the convention, only three could not attend, and Hand of the Cause Collis Featherstone represented the Universal House of Justice, then head of the religion ("Hand of the Cause" being one of a select group of Baháʼís, appointed for life, whose main function was to propagate and protect the religion under the head of the religion.) Goals and materials were voted on at the convention to make translations in indigenous languages. Previous translations of the histories of the lives of the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh were reviewed in Pidgin English.
Multiplying activities
Internal developments While central administration continued, many waves of journeys spread throughout much of the country in various extended trips often woven with various meeting events Baháʼís call "institutes" or Baháʼí schools for formal review of Baháʼí teachings and their application in individual and collective undertakings.
The second national convention was held in Lae in 1970, was attended by thirty six of the thirty eight delegates, and they discussed suggestions of initiatives for the Talasea, Pawaia, and Chimbu peoples of the mainland. Later in 1970 Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga, from central Africa, visited five villages and nearby Solomon Islands in two weeks.
Sue Podger undertook an extended trip along the Gulf Province in early 1971 across seven villages. During the trip she gave several talks and helped elect delegates for the national convention. That year's election of the national assembly saw Teman Kosap, John Mills, Noel Bluett, Lopena Vera, Margaret Bluett, Dan Humes, John Francis, Sue Podger, and David Podger elected, with Hand of the Cause Collis Featherstone again attending. It was noted that there was difficulty re-electing assemblies in local areas when an individual mentioned the issue at a conference in Fiji.
In 1973 the Universal House of Justice formally approved the practice of “translations” in simple English for use in Papua New Guinea as long as the original English translation appeared on the same page when in print to preserve the integrity of the authorized translation but also to “provide a means whereby the people of Papua and New Guinea could improve their knowledge and understanding of the English language.” However a translation of the Short Obligatory Prayer into a vernacular language of Papua New Guinea had to be revised when it was found that the translator had inserted an extra paragraph, because the original prayer was “too short”.
Hand of the Cause Featherstone attended the 1974 convention while the first known conversions to the religion took place in the Mount BrownThough Mount Brown itself is not listed in wikipedia see List of schools in Central Province, Papua New Guinea region of Central Province.
1975 saw the first Papuan woman, Elti Kunak, elected to the national assembly—she also won a national award for her work on women's rights. That year also saw the near total conversion of eight remote villages.
In 1976 four teams of Baháʼís, mostly from New Zealand, visited many remote villages and reached areas Baháʼís had not seen.
In 1977 youth from Papua New Guinea attended the eighth international youth conference in Australia. In 1978 Papua New Guineans hosted their first national conference on the promulgation of the religion and a music group toured and held numerous meetings both public and private for about 4 weeks. A summer school was held that year with attendance from neighboring countries as well as various nearby areas.
A group of African American Baháʼís did a week-long tour in the country in 1979. By 1980 Hoehnke is noted as a Continental Counselor.
A national youth conference of some 40 people took place in Port Moresby in 1981 while three provinces hosted Baháʼí institutes (a predecessor of Ruhi Institutes).