Mt. Hagen Cultural Show 2005

The Mt. Hagen show is Papua New Guinea's largest annual cultural show, attracting over 50 tribes who perform in sing-sing groups on a large field. The show was started in 1961 as both a celebration of Papua New Guinea's culture and a forum for friendly competition in place of war. In the past, there was a notion of a "winning" sing-sing group, but these days, money collected from tourists and sponsors is split evenly among all of the registered tribes to avoid conflict at the show's end.

Before each day's performance, tourists are allowed to roam the fields behind the arena while the various groups prepare for the day's show. All of the sing-sing groups were very nice to us, getting into character early and encouraging photography. Particularly cool was the preparation area in the furthest corner, where Chimbu skeletons, a rat monster, and mourners from Chimbu were getting ready. After the tourists had already started their procession into the arena, the Chimbu started their procession to the arena entrance, and I virtually had them on the field to myself. Their costumes and ritualized attacks on the rat monster were terrifying! After the official procession and inspection of the sing-sing groups, tourists were allowed into the arena itself (!) while all of the groups paraded and danced around. Absolutely incredible.

Only tourists had to purchase expensive passes to the show. The locals stood around the border of the area (segregated from us), and security officers and tour guides discouraged mutual interaction. On day 2, security guards were more serious about getting tourists back into the pen because the prior day, a tourist had his camera stolen by a raskol who managed to hop the fence, and second tourist was held up by machete. Despite isolated events like this, I never felt danger while at the show. We stayed in small groups and didn't stray far from the sing-sing groups, who have a vested interest in preventing harm to tourists.

The show was a fantastic experience, but I did feel sort of strange walking around, sticking my camera in people's faces. And when I first walked into the preparation area on the first day, an older man in traditional sing-sing attire looked up and greeted me with a friendly, "hello, masta'!" I was so taken aback that I didn't know how to react! It was a firm reminder that less than a generation has gone by since the days of colonialism in Papua New Guinea. In many ways, it's still there.

If you're interested in going to Papua New Guinea to see the Mt. Hagen show, I suggest that you go as soon as possible. This year, the show was sponsored by Cola-Cola (the first time there has been a large sponsor, I believe), and there is a strong possibility that the show will lose what makes it special as it becomes a bigger draw for tourists. Already, modern materials are making their way into the show costumes; vivid and metallic paints, tinsel, and musical instruments are now commonly used along side more traditional elements. Still, bird of paradise feathers and colorful lorikeet corpses adorned many of the show's headdresses; in fact, there were so many types of bird of paradise feathers at the show that National Geographic was there to document them.