Sunday morning might be when every love for God is heard in the church. The growing spirituality of the Papuan people is large. They come to the church every Sunday to perform their religious act of service. This also includes the Papuan spiritual songs.
You will discover in this essay how the Papuan people’s love of music reveals something about their spirituality. As their song is sung, we can hear their love.
Papuan Spiritual Song as the Expression
Music, as the Christian hymn, is the expression of oneself. Music can touch other people with a deeper level of understanding. People in the tribe have learned this music to relieve themselves from the cruelty of the outer world.
Both inside and outside of the church, music has the power to convey the innermost truths of a person’s soul, to convey teaching (as Martin Luther found), and to be receptive to divine communication.
This modernized music has disrupted the traditional music of the Papuan. Even so, the spiritual song is still well-liked by all.
In the Papuan community, old music and Dutch songs are used. For certain occasions, one is preferable to the other. People tend to use old music for funerals, bride price ceremonies, or birth.
Regarding this problem, some people have cataloged songs that join the indigenous part of the Papuan with Christian tunes. One of which is Duim and Kapissa in All Who Breathe.
This happened to help the culture of the Papuan people to be able to merge with the sacred words of the modern Church. To be able to return to the traditional times of aboriginal music that has communicative power to the local people with the Christianity modern hymn.
Therefore, Papuan people could still feel their origin and cultural social being heard and sung in the presence of worshippers. Hence the culture and language of the local population do not disappear within the growing community of Christians in the Papua region.
These figures who wrote and merged the culture of Papua and Christian hymns into one discovered that the traditional form of music in the local region had been only recognized and taught by the old generation. The young people seem to feel separated from traditional songs than modern type ones.
Hence, traditional music must be taught again to the young generation so the culture can remain intact with them and not disappear with the modernization of the world. As a result of this merger, many young Papuan people have begun to sing those tunes, especially in traditional cultural presentations and for their theology classes.
However, this traditional song seems to be separated from the church as its origin was not entirely the same as the church or expressed some pagan thinking.
The church also seems to be unwilling to use these Papuan spiritual songs for the worshiper activity. The reason is that these songs sound quite strange and foreign to the ear. And also that it also sounds like paganism.
In these times, many young people sing these tunes. The tune and melodies are Dutch, but the words are in Papua. It is closer to their origin and part of their lives. The Papuan people seem closer to these traditional songs than the old ones. Many seem to feel more embraced by these Papuan spiritual tunes than the modern ones.
Wrapping Up
Being able to be expressed as who they are is a different level of satisfaction. These people express their love of God by using beautiful hymns on Sunday mornings. Music for them is like an expression of relief. These Papuan spiritual songs are sung and heard by the outer world so they can listen.
