Day 12

Day 12 started bright and beautiful. We got up very early again today. We laid around for a while, but decided to go ahead and shower before everyone else got up and started using the hot water. We went out and started taking pictures, but it was so dark it was hard to get anything good. We had signed up for a bird watching outing that went out shortly after dawn, so we boarded the bus and headed up to where the birds of paradise were supposed to be. We stopped a couple of times, but birds of paradise are apparently not just shy, but downright determined not to be spotted. I got two glimpses of the birds. One was when it flew over across the road, and the other was jumping from branch to branch. Neither was a good look. I only saw them basically in profile. Some people in my bus saw another bird, but it flew away when the bus passed, and I was on the wrong side of the bus and never saw it. We continued up to Tari Gap and saw the wide open plain between several mountains. Our guide told us that certain times of the year, young men will come up here to hunt on their father's land. It is very important among these people that you not get caught hunting on someone else's land. If you are caught, you have to pay compensation or there could be a clan war. When they come up there, they stay in small huts. These huts may last one to five years, and then have to be rebuilt or at least get new roofs. How long they last, and how much repair they need depends on how much sun they get. If they're in the shade, they tend to rot faster than the ones that get sun and can dry out. Cars would go by every so often, so Jan asked our guide where they were going. He replied that we were on the main highway to the coast. This was a dirt road, and we had to practically stop in places because the ruts and holes were so deep. We just don't know what a bad road is in the US. When we got back, I heard someone saying what a great, successful outing we had. I guess I've learned a valuable lesson about believing what I read. When we picked the Southern Highlands destination, it was based in part on the presence of ten varieties of bird of paradise. Many of these bird outings don't see any at all. I had somehow convinced myself that we would get good sightings of at least three or four. What a joke. I will say, though, that the outing wasn't a total loss. Seeing the Tari Gap and learning a little more about the Huli way of life was interesting.

Breakfast was on when we got back, so we ate and relaxed a little. We had seen some people building a fire when we came back from birding, which was going to be used to cook mumu, a traditional meal of taro, banana, greens, and corn. I thought they were going to cook a pig, too, but that didn't happen. We went to see how they prepared the mumu and the Huli wig men and sing-sing dancers were getting ready. The food items were placed on banana leaves, and aluminum foil, wrapped up and hot stones were placed underneath and on top of the bundle. It was then covered with dirt to hold the heat in. We watched the sing-sing dancers putting on their adornments and paint, and got quite a few pictures. Then we went over to the area where they were going to do their presentation. The wig men were first. They were from the wig school. They explained that young men go to the wig school to grow their hair out to become a wig. It takes about eighteen months for their hair to be long enough and shaped and colored correctly to become a wig. They water their hair three times a day. They take a handful of ferns, dip them in water, and sprinkle the water over their hair. The water is supposed to make their hair turn from black to a lighter brown color. I guess it works because they had four men in various stages of completion, and the hair definitely does get lighter. After the hair is long enough and shaped and colored correctly, the man goes to the specialist to have his hair cut. It doesn't sound like much is done to the cut hair. If it's done correctly, what you have is a wig that can be placed back on top of the head. There are two basic shapes: an oval shape, like the crescent moon, and round like a mushroom. These wigs are called everyday wigs. They can be worn by any man that can grow one at any time. The other type of wig is called a ceremonial wig. It's made by taking two everyday wigs and forming them into a new wig. The bottom is a round wig, and the top is a crescent wig. The ceremonial wig is rubbed with soot to make it black, and shaped and sewn by the wig school specialist. These wigs can only be worn by permission of the village elders, and at special ceremonies. The wigs are elaborately decorated with bird of paradise feathers (they must have better luck finding them than we did), other animal elements (one had the whole backside of a possum sticking out the top of his wig), and other items. One looked like he had some tinsel in his wig. You may ask why have wigs in the first place. The feathers and things are necessary for the costumes these dancers wear. If you don't have any hair, you don't have any place to put those things. Besides the chance of becoming bald, long hair isn't always particularly convenient in this environment. It takes a lot of work to keep up the hair until it's cut, and if your hair won't grow, or becomes discolored or something else happens to it, the head of the wig school assumes you've done something bad and punishes you.

After the wig men came the sing-sing. The guys with the yellow and red makeup and very ornate outfits came out. Several of these men were wearing the ceremonial wigs. They look like some kind of hat, but they're made from hair and adorned as I described earlier. They would start beating their drums and jumping up and down. Each of the men was wearing bundle of leafy branches behind them like a bird's tail. As they jumped, the branches would shake and rustle. This is apparently how they attract women. They do the dance in short bursts. Someone will start beating their drum and the rest will join in and when they start jumping, they get together and synchronize very nicely. They also vocalize. They don't sing words as far as I can tell, just sort of chanting. It was hot and sunny while this was going on, and the sing-sing men were obviously getting tired and hot. The guide came up and talked about their costumes some. The wigs had already been described, but he pointed out the bird of paradise feathers, the rear end of the possum, and other elements. Every wig has a head band to help hold it on while the wearer is jumping around. They also have waist bands to hold on the bundle of branches, and a bone knife made from the thigh bone of a cassowary. The knife is used for defense, but it is also used to hide the owner's money in the hollow part of the bone.

After the show, the villagers had set up a small area where they had items for sale. Boar's teeth necklaces, string bags, axes, bows and arrows, dolls, etc. They also had one of their kunda drums which I wanted, but again Jan said no. One of those things that looks good there, but what the heck would I do with it at home. I think she was afraid I was going to sit around playing it. Sam found an awesome necklace, and Jan got some little bead necklaces for gifts.

We took our buys back to the room and rested a little while before we went out on a two hour hike in the rain forest. We found out they don't call it a rain forest for nothing. It was hot and sunny during the show, but it quickly cooled off and the clouds rolled in. It started raining just as we were leaving for the hike. It was two hours of slippery, muddy trails that were dotted with rocks and logs that were intended to make it easier to walk, but in the rain just made it more slippery. Many people fell at least once. There were three vine bridges on this path. They have to be replaced every six months, and we didn't dare ask how long it had been since these had been replaced. We had to walk across such that there were no more than three people on the bridge at once: one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. They were just wide enough for your foot, and not a lot more. They had sturdy hand rails, though, and I never felt like I was in danger of falling in the deadly rapids below. The highlight of the hike was the three waterfalls. Two smaller ones, and one large one. The large one is close to the lodge, and can be heard easily from our room. It's quite impressive, but it was raining pretty hard by the time we got to it and that cut down on the awe quite a bit. By the end of the hike, Jan was calling it a "death march". The end of the trail was at the bottom part of the lodge compound, and we were glad to see it. Several of us went up to the lodge to see what we could do to get our shoes cleaned off since they were so muddy. The lady that runs it (and indeed, all five lodges owned by the same company in various parts of PNG), got one of the native workers and said he could take our shoes down to the river and wash them off if we'd leave them with him, so we did that. We walked down the path barefooted, and I mean to tell you that HURT. The path is stones set in concrete, and my feet are not used to such rough treatment. I got back to the hut and laid down for a little while. They were having a local man come to talk about weapons and warfare, so I wanted to hear that. He ended up talking about a lot more than that. Young men, at age 7 or 8 are sent from their mother to the men's house where they're taught how to do manly things like use a bow and arrow. At fourteen or fifteen, they can go to the wig school and start growing their hair out. After they graduate from the wig school, if their prospects are good, their parents may pick them wife. Then they have to come up with thirty pigs for the bride price. There are three things that are important to the Huli tribesmen: land, pigs, and women. In that order. Women come last in just about every respect. They have no rights to speak of, but they have lots of responsibility. They tend the gardens, tend the pig(s) and tend the children. I'm not sure what the men do other than hunt and fight. And what do they fight over? Land, pigs, and women. And everything involves compensation. If you're caught hunting on someone else's land, you have to pay compensation. If you have sex with a woman not your wife and you're caught, you have to pay compensation. If you start a clan war and someone fighting for you is killed or seriously wounded, you have to pay compensation. And we're talking about a lot by their standards. Two hundred twenty five pigs (slaughtered) to be divided up among the dead man's family. More pigs alive, and another payment to the parents which is made in private, at night. That's a lot of pigs and money for a Huli. I don't see how they can ever afford to start a clan war. And quite often, nothing is really settled by the actual war. When they get tired of fighting, or the chiefs make them stop, they settle the dispute by mediation and then start settling up the compensation. For a simple people, they have some very complicated rules of compensation.

After the weapons and warfare talk, they had an elder of the tribe come and speak to us. He didn't speak English so he had another man there to translate. He told about his first encounter with white men. He saw an airplane before he ever saw a white man, and didn't know what to make of it. When he first saw a white man he thought it was a ghost. He was asked whether his life was better before the white man or after, and he said after. He said now he can send his children to school, and buy soap to wash his body and his clothes and get a job and earn money (he works for the company that owns the lodge). Then the lady that runs the lodge(s) spoke up and told a story about 9/11. She said when they heard about the attacks over the short wave radio, they knew there would be a war, so they looked on their map of the world. Now, when the Huli have a clan war, they fight in the land in the middle of the people having the dispute. So when they looked on their map, which has Australia in the middle, North America was on one side and the Middle East on the other, and Papua New Guinea in the middle. So they showed up at the lodge in their full war paint, with their bows and arrows, and axes and promised to protect the lodge and the managers from the people coming to have a war. That's how strongly they felt about the white people who came in to bring tourists to help support the Huli.

Dinner was so-so as usual at the lodge, and afterward I went to bed rather than stay up for part of another movie.