Moral reform and miraculous cures: Christian healing and AIDS in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

As the AIDS epidemic gathers intensity and notice in Papua New Guinea, extravagant claims have materialized about wondrous cures for this disease that medical science has been unable to cure. Many of these claims are coming from so-called traditional healers-"so-called" because many of their remedies are recent inventions, which, rather than being based on a traditional corpus of knowledge, are products of today. These herbal remedies are being offered for sale at markets everywhere, with large banners proclaiming their ability to cure not only sikAIDS but many other illnesses and ailments as well. A banner opposite the Goroka market in 2006 offered products that could cure AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), syphilis, and approximately fi fteen other assorted illnesses. My concern here is not with the truth, or otherwise, of these remarkable claims but with the ways that HIV/AIDS is being "talked about"-that is, with the forms of signifi cation being applied to the epidemic and, in particular, how these are being articulated through a Christian perspective (Treichler 1999). Christianity has been a dominant feature of Papua New Guinean culture for many years, over a century in some places, and it has a pervasive infl uence in the daily lives of the citizens, 97 percent of whom profess to be Christian (PNG NSO 2002). The connections between Christianity and the AIDS epidemic are therefore an important issue.