Episode 34: Badly Drawn Boy

I am a geek. There are many ways in which I am a geek, but today I would like to focus my attention on one particular reason; I love flags. I don’t really know why, I just always have. I have shared with many people the story behind Papua New Guinea's flag, a story which I love, but there are many more flags in Papua New Guinea. There are 21 provinces in Papua New Guinea and each province has its own flag. I live in Goroka in the East Highlands Province and I have often looked at our flag. It has a green and red background and in the foreground it has a large yellow six pointed star surrounded by eight smaller ones. The number of points represents the districts and the number of smaller stars represent the local government councils. But one thing has always puzzled me when I’ve looked at the flag. In the centre of the star in the centre of the every East Highlands Province flag that I have ever seen is the same funny looking man.

The East Highland Province Flag

Or at least that’s what I had always thought he was. Now what was funny about him was that he was always missing one arm and one leg, like the artist only got half way through and ran out of time. But I recently found out that this was no accident, for this was no man, this was Nokondi. Nokondi is to all intents and purposes a man, but everything that a normal man would have two of; legs, arms, eyes, ears, and so on, Nokondi only has one. Every village in the East Highlands would speak of the Nokondi who lived nearby, most likely in a cave. He is a trouble-maker or at least a mischief maker and if something happened with no immediately obvious culprit, he would often get the blame. In just two generations before now he would have been thought of as being very real, but now he is considered by most to be a myth who is part of ancient tradition. Even so, you will no doubt be able to hear his name being spoken if you spend enough time in the village. No one would ever dare go into his cave and he was respected (maybe feared), but thought too, as a good presence for all the trouble that he caused, as though in some way he protected the village. As I listened to this explanation I couldn’t help wondering how I might behave differently if I knew I had someone looking after me, and how I might treat that person. Then I remembered that I do.