Ambua and the Huli People

Our arrival in Tari was not pleasant. Tari itself is not a welcoming environment for outsiders, and a drunken guy parading around inside the airport area tried to take Son's hat, simply because he liked it. Ambua lodge does have its own airstrip, but we couldn't fly there directly because Calden had to pick up too many passengers to be able to take off on the short airstrip. The lodge is a long drive from Tari, and the road is horrible and dotted with potholes. Fortunately, when we arrived we discovered that Ambua lodge is really, really nice. It is powered by hydrothermal energy, and because excess energy can't be sold back to any power company (what power company??), it is piped into radiant heating in the main lodge. There are two orchid gardens on the premises, and the view down the valley during the small windows of sunshine made the trip up the road worth it.

The reputation of the proud Huli is something you will probably hear about long before arriving in Tari. The Huli represent one of the largest language groups in Papua New Guinea, with nearly 40,000 people speaking one common dialect. Communities are organized into extended family groups commonly referred to as clans. Each clan builds a tall, clay wall/moat around their plot of land, and in general there seems to be complicated politics around inter-clan conflicts. Coffins line the tops of village walls; if a man is killed in tribal warfare or in another way that involves some sort of payback, they are buried by the road for everyone to see. In fact, clan warfare is still commonplace; we met a nice Japanese linguist and his daughter while in Mt. Hagen, and they had just stayed at a missionary in Huli land. While there, they were unable to leave the mission compound because of warring clans. A total of 10 people were killed while they were there. Most clan disputes involve bows and arrows, but guns are making their way into the hands of warriors, resulting in so many deaths that the normal system of escalated payback (whether it's through pigs or retaliation) is becoming impossible to fulfill.

The Huli are most known for being "wig men." Daily and ceremonial wigs are worn by a select few, each meticulously made out of real hair grown in a ritualistic purging period that takes anywhere from 18 months (day wig) to 36 months (ceremonial wig, made of two 18-month cuttings). During hair growing, young men cannot sleep on their hair and spend a lot of their time in isolated "schools" with a teacher, who casts spells on special water for them to drink and sprinkle over budding afros. We went to a wig "school" to see the process, and while it may have been embellished a bit for us tourists, it was a pretty impressive thing to see. There is no getting around the fact that each wig takes at least 18 months to grow!

Feminists would probably hate the Huli. Hulis who haven't been converted to Christianity are polygamous, with some men acquiring enough pig-wealth over time to afford multiple wives. There is tremendous fear and distrust of women in the culture, and Huli men sleep in one house while women, children, and pigs sleep in another. A wife's place is tending children and pigs; when boys get old enough, they move into the men's house, but require some time before they are sufficiently cleansed of female contamination. And speaking of female contamination, the wig-growing process centers around purging oneself of everything woman. After all, every man begins life contaminated by childbirth and care from his mother. Things are changing, however. There was a groundbreaking lawsuit up in the Huli area (we were told) that involved a woman going to school to become a doctor. While she was gone, her clan sold her to a man without her consent. She sued the clan and won her right to pursue her education instead.

I met two photographers while I was at Ambua: BBC Cameraman Paul Stewart and Japanese photographer Mr. Shimada. Both were up in Ambua for shots of birds of paradise, which New Guinea is very well known for. Their stories of time in bird blinds were very entertaining; it seems that getting permission from local land owners is a complicated process, and they have had to deal with things like stray arrows fired into their blinds by bored children! Paul is shooting for the BBC's upcoming Planet Earth series, and Mr. Shimada for Canon's upcoming release of the Canon EOS 5D, EOS 1D Mk IIN, and 24-105 f4L IS lens (he let me try them, which was very cool). Also, I saw some demo footage Paul and a few others shot for a BBC Galapagos production they are working on, and it was the best footage of the Galapagos I have ever seen. I'm looking forward to seeing the final production.

Other interesting guests included the CEO of Halliburton (with his "VIP" entourage -- I knew they were VIPs because they had pins on that said as much) and the governor of the southern highlands (with his automatic-weapon-toting entourage). Ambua Lodge attracts some heavy hitters! The governor and his wife were apparently haphazardly giving out money to locals (not such a great move); in fact, they ran out of money and had to use a helicopter to have more delivered. We heard that free money often ends up being piped into alcohol (despite the area being officially dry), and during a run through the market one day, a drunken local stood in front of the bus and refused to move. Because we Westerners aren't used to people carrying machetes, it was a little scary. :)