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April 2000


The Greatest Show on Earth—Revisited
Papua New Guinea, A Sentimental Journey
by Peter Skinner

I first went to Papua New Guinea in 1946, at age four months in the arms of my mother, Marie, and with my older brother, David, about five years old. We were joining my fa-ther, Ian, then assistant district of-ficer in the remote Eastern Highlands administrative outpost of Kainantu. My parents has been in pre-war PNG in the late 1930s, and now World War II was over they were returning to the primitive country that I would call home for the next 20 years, and to some ex-tent still do.

After some 20 years in Papua, I left in 1966; and now, in August 1999, I was returning on a short but memorable trip. to Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands Province. The year before I had met an Australian ex-pat, Bob Bates, in Los Angeles at the Dive Equipment and Marketing Association convention. Bob, a long-time Papua New Guinea resident, who knew my father from the mid-1960s, and his wife Pam run one of the country’s best known tourist operations, Trans Nuigini Tours, based in Mount Hagen. He encouraged me to visit. Similar en-couragement had long come from my sister Julie-Marie who had been born in PNG and was now an attor-ney in the country’s capital, Port Moresby. I couldn’t resist and timed my visit to coincide with one of the great tribal events that PNG offers: the Mount Hagen Cultural Show, which had evolved from the original Mount Hagen Singsings, which my father had started back in the late 1950s, early Œ60s, when he was the District Commissioner of the Western Highlands.

Another objective was trying to find an old childhood friend, Den Kingal, whose father had been a po-liceman working with the Australian administration. I had last spent time with Den back in 1958. As youngsters we had hunted ducks, made rafts and floated down wild rivers, hiked through wilderness areas, and camped out in rainforest and jungle. I did find Den in his vil-lage and in that instant of contact, some 35-40 years slipped away. Over the next few days we saw each other several times and my sister Julie and I met all his family.

One of my missions was accom-plished. Another, celebrating and photographing the Mount Hagen Show, was one of the most excite-ment-packed and fulfilling two days of photography that I can recall. Perhaps nostalgia and familiarity played important roles in the ex-citement that this event engendered over two incomparable days.

One of my missions was accom-plished. Another, celebrating and photographing the Mount Hagen Show, was one of the most excite-ment-packed and fulfilling two days of photography that I can recall. I have been fortunate to have traveled to quite a few different countries and have photographed in most. But, and perhaps nostalgia and fa-miliarity played important roles in the excitement that this event en-gendered, those two days were in-comparable.

“The Greatest Show on Earth” is a hackneyed saying, but one of the visitors I met at the 1999 Mount Hagen Show described it as such and I am not going to argue.

Imagine, if you will, thousands of colorful—and I mean really color-ful—exotic tribespeople in tradi-tional costumes of Bird of Paradise, parrot, cockatoo, pigeon, and hawk feathers; their bodies gleaming in vegetable oils and pig fat, smeared with ash and charcoal and painted in hues that have to be seen to be believed; on their heads human hair wigs adorned with plumage and moss; bones, feathers, shell, boars’ tusks or leaves through pierced noses and ears; loin cloths, grass skirts; marsupial furs and hornbill beaks dangling from their necks and shoulders; faces decorated in paints from mineral deposits and tree sap.

Muscular, lithe warriors carrying bows and arrows, spears, stone axes and clubs, chanting, singing, stamp-ing their feet, pounding the animal or reptile skin tympanums of kun-dus (wooden drums) and playing bamboo flutes; groups of bare-breasted women, their oiled bodies bedecked in fur, feathers, hundreds of shells and string of beads, writhing and swaying, their high-pitched voices singing traditional, story-telling songs that filled the air with noise, energy, excitement. It is a combination of sight, sound, and frenetic energy that defies descrip-tion.

Mount Hagen warriors and women; the yellow-faced Huli wig-men from the Southern Highlands; the Simbu mudmen and women, with their gray-clay covered bodies, grotesque masks and long, bamboo fingernails; the black and white wild pig skeleton men from Lake Kopiago, and the magnificent men and women from the Enga, another Western Highlands tribe and, I be-lieve, the largest language group in PNG; and people from coastal tribes with distinctive tall totems of bam-boo and feathers balanced on the shoulders of strong, young men were among the 50-some cultural groups.

Back in the late 1950s, a singsing usually involved groups from the same tribe or village gathering to cel-ebrate and dance. Larger events would bring tribespeople from the main Mount Hagen central area tribes—the Moge, Jiga, Yamnga, Kukilka and Keme—into the town in their thousands. The ground would shake with their stamping feet and their singing could be heard long before they arrived, walking in from their distant villages.

The modern Hagen Show involves groups from many parts of PNG, and while highlanders are predomi-nant, many participants from coastal tribes, and from as far as New Britain, venture to Mount Hagen for the two-day event. There can be more than 50 tribes repre-sented by cultural groups, each dressed in traditional finery and col-ors and each performing their own unique dance, music and song. Keep in mind that in the country’s four million people there are more than 800 different languages: not dialects but distinct languages. That lends itself to a cultural diversity probably not found anywhere else. And a good representation is right there in Mount Hagen for two days.

Melanesian pidgin, the lingua franca for much of Papua New Guinea is the first language I ever learned—along with those of four tribes in the Kainantu area—and it came back to me fairly quickly. And being able to converse with the peo-ple certainly simplified my photo-graphic access on this trip. The people are very receptive to being photographed—no payment was re-quested—and a few words of en-couragement in pidgin (or tok pisin, as it is called in that language) helped things along. Also, many of the old-timers knew my father, or remembered his presence, and that was a great conversation opener for both my sister Julie-Marie and me.

Photographic opportunities abounded in the staging area where make-up artists applied their exper-tise and groups danced and chanted in warm up prior to the actual per-formances. In fact there were so many exotic subjects, it was hard to know what to photograph first. I had decided to concentrate on really tight portraits and used a combina-tion of 105mm and 80mm-200mm zoom lens to get in close and fill flash, which I used a lot, helped open up shadows. And I comple-mented these portraits with overall shots and wider shots of dance groups.

While visitors are invited to enter the show ground once the perfor-mances are completed each day, usually by about 1:00p.m., and thus can have unlimited access to photo-graph, during the show everyone must stay behind a fence. However, as each of the groups moves past the main grandstand, photography is virtually unrestricted. The Hagen Show does draw international visi-tors but the majority of spectators are the indigenous highlanders who flock there in their thousands to en-joy the festivities.

In this modern world where dis-tances are shrunk by jet travel and the word “global” is synonymous with virtually everything we do, it is refreshing to know that in pockets of isolated areas primitive cultures not only exist but thrive thanks to events such as the Mount Hagen Show and the people who keep them going. From a personal aspect, I take a certain amount of pride in being associated with the Hagen Show from its beginnings, before it was of-ficially dubbed with its present title.

And if you are a photographer who enjoys travel, colorful subjects un-like others you will encounter any-where else in the world, and the op-portunity to really step back in time, don’t miss the opportunity to visit Papua New Guinea, not only the land that time once forgot but also the land of the unexpected. However, it is advised that you book travel through an organization and several companies do provide ser-vices to ensure a comprehensive itinerary and ease of travel.

The Mount Hagen Show, sched-uled for August 19 and 20, 2000, is an obvious highlight of a visit, but this magnificent country offers a di-versity of cultures and scenery that should not be missed including some of the best diving in the world. For further information, an excel-lent starting point is Trans Niugini Tours, PO Box 371, Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea; e-mail:travel@pngtours.com; [www.pngtours.com].

Australian writer/photographer Peter Skinner is based in Anacortes, Wash., a far cry from the highlands of Papua New Guinea where he spent many years. Formerly the public rela-tions director with Brooks Institute of Photography, he is now communica-tions director for the American Society of Media Photographers. He can be reached at his new web site: [www.peterskinner.com].