Janice Lamattina
Huli Man
BLAME IT ON PIGS, WOMEN, OR LAND
Back in Mount Hagen where I posted from the Sing-Sing a couple weeks ago, I had an opportunity to learn more about the Huli wigmen. Of all the tribes in PNG, the Huli are regarded as the most aggressive and quick to fight. They were clearly more excitable than other tribes we’d met, all talking at once, gesturing. After they performed a brief sing-sing for us, with hopping movements that mimic those of PNG’s famous bird of paradise, their bilas (tribal dress) was explained. Like the dance itself, the leaves on their backside shake like the bird of paradise, which has long tail feathers.
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Huli Dancing
Their headdress includes blue feathers from the flightless and endangered cassowary, one of the largest and heaviest birds in the world.
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Cassowary
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Cassowary Feathers in Headdress
The necklace is made from cassowary quills. The piece on the back of the neck is a hornbill’s beak.
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Necklace with cassowary quills and beak
But their headpiece, made from the hair of a young Huli man,is why they are called wigmen. The male initiation ritual for Hulis involves a very young boy being taken from his mother and sequestered for up to three years while his hair grows out. He must follow a diet that encourages faster hair growth and his hair is sprinkled with a special water. While it is growing, the boy sleeps on a neck rests so as to not crush the hair. When the hair gets long enough, it is carefully cut and sort of held together in the hat shape with bamboo shoots. The isolation from women during this process makes the hair “clean.”
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2 wig headdress
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Smaller headdress
This larger headpiece is actually made from two wigs (the Huli grew his hair out twice) and then connected.
Huli men have a strong male culture and—even more than other tribes—believe a woman, with the power to create life, can contaminate and steal their strength. The only way to control this power is to fill her with semen.
I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of their convictions until, during the guide’s explanation of the wig, I put my hand close, not QUITE touching, to one man’s headpiece to ask a question. Nineteen Huli men simultaneously gasped, shouted a warning and nearly lunged to stop me. I would have contaminated the wig - or the man (I’m not sure which). In fact, the guide himself, as a married man who has slept with a woman, could not touch the wig. Today, not all Huli men follow this tradition. It takes considerable time, commitment, as well as money (the man who trains the boy how to grow his hair and then makes the wig must be paid).
But why are the Huli, or any of the tribes, so warlike?
The answer from a local guide as to what causes all the conflicts: “Women. Pigs. Land.”
Women. In a country that is primarily Catholic or Lutheran (with a fairly significant Latter Day Saints presence), that credits missionaries with building schools and bringing in teachers, many men have multiple wives. There are obvious reasons: more wives mean more children to work; the belief that men cannot “be” with their wives while the wives are nursing (1 to 3 years).
“Bride price” is practiced by all tribes and is not only compensation (a word I heard over and over in so many different contexts), but an actual marriage “ceremony,” legally recognized in PNG. Even in the provincial capital of Mount Hagen, bride price is how people marry (even, yes, if they met on Facebook). There is no religious/church ceremony. The question “What do the priests think of that?” is answered with a quizzical look and a shrug.
Bride price is paid by the groom’s family/clan to the bride’s family/clan. Traditionally (and as recently as the 1980s), the payment was in the form of seashells. Today, it is typically pigs (30 would be average; remember: a large pig is worth about $1300), money (15,000 kina or about $3000) and food (plantains, sugar cane, etc.). The price is a sign of appreciation for the work and training that has gone into raising a daughter. The more accomplished the bride (judged on whether she can cook and if she knows when to harvest sweet potatoes and how to raise pigs, and, today, in areas like Mount Hagen, whether she is educated and whether she has a job), the higher the price.
The groom’s family (always from a different clan!) approaches the bride’s and expresses their interest. The “bride,” with a sister or girlfriend, then goes and spends two weeks living at the groom’s family’s home, but cannot speak or be with the boy; they just watch each other from afar. The groom’s family watches her to see if she can do all the things expected of a wife.
After the two weeks, the bride price ceremony begins. The families and clans gather in what we would call the town square. The “procession” of the bride price begins: the largest pigs first, then smaller, then food. The largest pig is given to the bride’s mother in appreciation for raising her daughter well. A cassowary bird, who lives a long time, is given to the bride’s father to wish him a long life. Then the bride is asked if she accepts the groom. She is given time to think it over. When I asked “how much time,” the answer was “Several minutes.” She can say no and, apparently, there are no repercussions and the groom’s family would just return home with their pigs. If she says “yes,” the couple are typically given a sow and male pig and a bit of money to get themselves going. In this patriarchal society, the son is given a share of the father’s land to farm. If the marriage doesn’t work out, the husband keeps the children and possessions. After all, his family paid the bride price.
I should point out here that domestic violence is VERY high in PNG. Something like two-thirds to 80 percent of men admit to sexual violence against their partner. When some of the women in my group tried to raise this topic with local female guides, the replies were cursory, at best.
Pigs. “How can pigs cause conflicts?” I asked. Pigs are not kept to eat. They have always represented wealth. In one lodge, there was a photo from the 1930s showing a woman, simultaneously, nursing a child and a piglet. Yes, disturbing. But it shows the value pigs have in this society.
So, if one man’s pig gets loose (They are usually kept on leashes and are walked like dogs.) and tears up a neighbor’s garden, the neighbor may shoot the pig. Then the owner may demand a pig in return as compensation, if he can prove the neighbor shot his pig.
LAND. The Wahgi Valley in the central highlands is a world heritage site. There is evidence that agriculture was happening here 10,000 years ago, one of the earliest (if not the earliest) farming community on earth. The land is incredibly fertile and the climate moderate. There are banana trees, coffee, vanilla, chocolate, vegetables galore. Everyone grows crops, enough for their families and hopefully enough to sell.
Along back roads in Mount Hagen you see filled plastic bags. Those are picked coffee beans. A man in a truck comes along with a scale and pays people the equivalent of 30 cents for 2 pounds of beans, cash on the spot. He dumps the bag in the back of the pick up and drives along to the next roadside bag.
Janice Lamattina
Truck picking up coffee beans
This photo shows a typical size of a Mount Hagen man’s garden.
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Typical size garden plot to feed family and sell at market
There are no land records to validate ownership. Ownership is defined by several feet deep trenches that were cut around the property 400 years ago. As land gets further subdivided across generations, more trenches are cut and the plots get smaller and smaller. A problem.
The other way of claiming landownership is to plant a tree in the middle of your plot. Then, if someone else claims it for theirs, you can say “No. I planted this tree and everything 200 meters around it is mine.” Land is everything: survival, income. So it is easy to see how disagreements on ownership would lead to conflicts.
A Mount Hagen villager typically has three buildings on his property: a kitchen, an outhouse with pit toilet that is moved periodically, and the house itself.
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Kitchen in foreground, then house, up the hill is the outhouse.
A fairly well-off villager will have a corrugated metal roof rather than thatch. The walls are made with woven bamboo leaves that are sold in rolls that look like our carpet rolls.
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"Nice" home with corrugated metal roof and woven bamboo walls
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Woven Bamboo Walls
In modern day PNG, the conflicts over land continues. Much of Mount Hagen tribal land was taken by the government in the 30s and 40s in what is euphemistically called “compulsory acquisition.” In exchange, villagers were given pieces of mirrors, axes and salt. (Sound familiar?) The disgust in our guide’s voice as he described this was obvious.
You’ll recall I said my PNG itinerary was revised only two weeks prior to departure when the tour company felt they could not guarantee our safety in one area (a Huli area). That conflict is all about land.
Exxon has a huge natural gas facility in Hela Province. As compensation, they were to pay money to the government that was to be reinvested in the province: roads, schools, hospitals. None of that has happened and now the local tribes, believing their land has been taken from them and they have not received anything in return, are rioting.
Interestingly, the current Prime Minister is from Hela Province. You would think, following wontok (allegiance first to your clan/tribe: “one talk”), he would take care of his own. But this is a good example of how the modern version of wantok has often become cronyism.
Further complicating the Exxon/Hela issue is the fact that the pipeline crosses numerous tribal lands. How to determine how much money goes to each tribe?
And last: the 7.8 earthquake centered in Hela in April caused serious mudslides, damaged much of what little infrastructure exists, and created a sense of unease. What caused the earthquake, people want to know? Punishment for taking the land? Removing something from the earth and putting nothing back in its place? Unhappy spirits? So: the government has begun an investigation to determine the cause of the earthquake, obviously and sadly a futile wasteful effort.
As I head now for Indonesia, this incredible experience in Papua New Guinea comes to a close. I have sung the PNG national anthem with school children who cannot articulate any dreams for a future. I have seen young men proudly line up to display their newly acquired crocodile scars. I have watched nearly 2000 people enthusiastically display their tribal heritage through dance and song and costume. I have returned the waves of smiling women, trudging up a hill with homemade tools after working the fields all day. I taught young kids to make a “fish kiss” face just I did my grandkids. And I held hands tightly with a kind woman who held my hand…
Janice Lamattina
Janice with the woman who gave her the necklace gift.
...and so much more. This experience has brought new sights, new learnings. It’s made me wonder about the meaning—and vulnerability—of “culture,” of “primitive” culture.
And like the world over, I’ve seen happy faces, surprised, sad, tired, innocent faces.
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Instead of coming directly home, I am stopping on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, east of Bali. There is a group of people there with some unusual, unique customs who were featured on a National Geographic special. Look for that blog in a few days.
Meanwhile: Antkemom! That is pidgin for “thank you very much” for coming along with me.
