Ahead to Page 3 Back to Page 1 Rossputin Home Page
One of the highlights of the show for me, and apparently for many others were the Huli people from the Southern Highlands. With their bright yellow face paint, fantastic Highlander hats, and back-worn cassowary beak and pig tusk finery, they are the personification of what many people picture when they think of PNG Highlanders. Their dance was different than that of any other group: They line up in two rows, facing each other, and jump to a drum beat, the entire group moving a few inches sideways with each jump.
Huli Dancer with Kundu Drum Huli Child w/Coke can drum
.JPG)
Huli Singsing group dancing
Another popular group was the Mud Men, who I believe are from the Goroka area. They, like the Hulis are some of the most famous images of Highland PNG.
Ross with Mud Man Taking a Rest Mud Man w/ clicking bamboo fingers
I learned that the Singsing groups are graded A, B, or C, and that each member of the groups are paid based on the group’s grade. We were told that the entire amount we paid for the pins which gave us access to the showground goes directly to the groups. (I don’t know how much that was per pin because it was part of a package for us.) But grade A groups got something like K60 per person. The currency is called the Kina, made up of 100 Toea (pronounced toy’-uh). New Kina notes are being printed on polymer to make counterfeiting difficult, and make the bills last longer. There are about 3.4 Kina per US dollar at the time I'm writing this. However it is not a very liquid currency so it is possible to do slightly better or much worse, depending on where you are exchanging. (The last time I was in PNG, about 10 years ago, the Kina was worth more than $1!) A typical salary of a store clerk in Mt. Hagen is apparently about K6 per day, and for a crew member on our small cruise ship on the Sepik, about K15 per day, so K60 is pretty good for two days’ work!
Old PNG money, also called Kina and Toea were generally shell money, with the most widely know types those used in the Sepik. Kina were generally worn around the neck and Toea around the arm. They are quite beautiful, and still often used as money, particularly in bride price ceremonies, as well as for compensation for wrongdoing, or for land or other purchases.
Kina Shell* Toea Shells*
Near the end of the first day of the Singsing, I was approached by a Highlander who was selling some small stone necklaces. I told him that I was only interested in collecting pieces which were actually used in a village and not made to be sold to tourists. I also told him that I was very interested in learning about PNG culture, history, and religion, and wasn't just there to buy stuff. After a little more talking, I learned his name was Anis.
.JPG)
Anis' Singsing group (Keia Wulbung Group, Anglimp District) Anis (far right)
He said he could bring some old pieces from his village the next day and I asked if we could just go to his village today. Anis said it was possible, as his village was just behind the nearby mountain, so I asked how long a trip it would be. As Highlanders have generally been subsistence farmers confined to a relatively small geographical area, the ideas of time and distance measurements are not finely tuned in Mt. Hagen. So, when I asked Anis how long the trip would be, he said "It's 30 or 40 kilometers, and an hour or an hour and a half."
It turned out that I thought he had a car and he thought I had a car, so we started walking around asking for a ride, which I was willing to pay for. Gasoline is expensive there because the currency is very weak while oil and its products are traded in US dollars. When we mentioned to some policemen that we were looking for a ride, they huddled for a minute and then offered to drive us. So, we went: Me, Anis, Anis' "father" whose name I didn't catch and who is chief of his clan at the village, and 6 cops in a blue police van complete with metal grating over the front windshield. The Highlands can be quite dangerous, although I wasn't nervous, and the cops really wanted to make sure no tourists had serious trouble. I'm sure they didn't mind the idea of a potential gratuity at the end, either, and I didn't disappoint, but I digress...