On August 8th, 2023, I had the pleasure of traveling to Papua New Guinea. This adventure was undoubtedly different from my prior travels, as Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a place unlike any other. The culture, the tribes and the vibe are all unique. I spent just over three weeks in this country having some amazing experiences and learning as much as I possibly could about this largely ignored culture.
I documented my travels throughout the country in six separate posts, preceded by a post on the history of the nation. You can see Papua New Guinea through my eyes by perusing the posts in the carousel below.
Papua New Guinea inspired me to introduce a new section to my travel blog. Cultural Snapshots will be where I will delve a bit further into certain aspects of the cultures I have encountered during my travels. I hope to provide my readers with a deeper look and first-hand knowledge that you simply cannot get from search engines.
In this Cultural Snapshot, I will be introducing you to the Huli Wigmen of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
The Huli
With a population reportedly somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000 , the Huli are the largest ethnic group in the Highlands. The Huli are proud people who are believed to have descended from one man named Hela. Hela was a masterful farmer who had four sons and one daughter: Opena, Huli, Duna, Tuguba and Hewa. Today, the descendants of each of his children occupy a region of the Highlands and credit their ancestor with the richness and fertility of the land.
Residing in the Tari Valley, the Huli were largely isolated from the outside world until 1934 when Australian gold miners, Jack Hide and Peter O’Malley crossed the Papuan Plateau. Post their visit, remote pockets of clans were continuously encountered over the next few decades. The last known cluster of clans was contacted in the early 1960s.
Individualistic, yet modest, the Huli are very community minded and tend to be religious. They regard their culture as being superior to that of their neighbors, however, they will borrow cultural elements from them. The Huli are keenly aware of their history, genealogy and traditional folk-lore. Great emphasis is placed on preserving their culture with the younger generations. Unlike many other Highland peoples, they have not relinquished much of their cultural expressions to new and innovative ways of thinking.
Daily Life
The landscape is dotted with gardens, which both men and women tend. Sweet potatoes, taro, pumpkin, beans, corn, cabbage, tobacco and assorted greens are cultivated in the rich volcanic soil. Banana, pineapple, papaya and bamboo trees are cultivated near their homes. The bamboo trees provide both food and fibers which are used as building materials and in the crafting of household items, such as mats, water vessels and musical instruments.
Sweet potatoes are by far the main staple of the Huli diet and are eaten every day. A meal is considered incomplete if there is only rice and fish, as these were foods introduced by the colonizers.
Both men and women raise pigs, which along with chickens, provide the only substantial form of animal protein in their diet. The Huli consume pork more frequently than other Highland tribes. While the Wiru, Mendi and Kewa tribes save their pigs for large rituals or ceremonies, the Huli will slaughter a pig for a meal simply because they wanted the meat or for a special occasion.
While the Huli consume pork, the importance of pigs as currency and in ritual sacrificial offerings, transcends their value as a food item. Pigs are the basic item of exchange for bride-wealth, major purchases, and compensation payments. While the price for a bride depends on her value (ie. if she has any special skills, is a baker, seamstress, etc.), it is not uncommon for 19-26 pigs to be exchanged as a dowry. As with many tribes, the pig is still the main form of currency, even though modern paper and coin currency have been successfully introduced.
Dwellings
Typically, their houses are made of wood, kunai grass and woven bamboo or pit-pit (reed) walls. A standard traditional house measures about 10 feet wide, 15-20 feet long and about 6.5 high at the peak of the roof. The building is usually divided into two loosely defined sections. The front section serves as the living and dining area where a fire is usually kept burning in a shallow pit. The back section is the sleeping quarters and may contain a wood and reed platform that serves as a bed. The top of the structure is usually covered in black pitch from the firepit, as the houses usually do not have windows or vents to release the smoke. A small door three feet high is the only entrance. Iron roofing, doors with hinges and latches, windows, and crude benches are becoming increasingly commonplace now.
Next to the main living quarters is an open, thatched-roof building which serves as a rest-house and/or cook house. This structure serves as a social hub where villagers spend time conversing, preparing and eating meals and smoking.
In their culture, males and females maintain separate accommodations. Culturally, most Highland men believe women are dangerous witches and possess the ability to leech away a man’s masculinity. They fear menstrual contamination believing it weakens a man’s skin thereby accelerating the aging process. They also believe menstrual blood inhibits the growth of a large, shiny wig. These beliefs affect their social behavior so much that men avoid women as much as possible as a safeguard to their virility and physical development.
Traditionally, the Huli do not live in villages, instead individuals have dwellings dispersed throughout their clan unit territory. The dwellings are then organized into patrilineal genealogical units called hame ignini (children of brothers).
Hierarchy
In terms of tribal hierarchy, there are no Huli “chiefs” . All leaders come to power through their ability at war, skill in mediating disputes and by amassing wealth in pigs and shells. Male leaders live an ascetic lifestyle not associating with women, providing for their own needs and living lives above reproach.
The Wigmen
This tribe is renowned for the Huli Wigmen who hail from the Hela province. Formerly part of the Southern Highlands, Hela was created in 2012 and consists of three districts: Magarima, Koroba-Kopiago and Tari-Pori. Tari is the provincial capital. The Wigmen have an extraordinary presence that exudes strength and masculinity. This presence stems from the combination of their stocky muscular physical stature, as well as the fact that they are almost always found with an axe or spear at their disposal.
Traditional Dress
Males
The essential male dress is comprised of a thickly woven red belt that holds a long woven knee-length apron. A shorter apron, which covers the genitals is also worn. The rear is covered with long cordyline leaves which are bound together by a rope and held in place on the belt with a small, whittled stick. The cordyline leaves are selected specifically for their shiny red and green coloring accented with yellow edging. Sometimes the leaves are folded accordion style. A wide belt (hago) woven from cane fibers over a tree bark base rests on top of the red belt. The hago is worn cinched tightly around the waist causing the men to stand erect, accentuating the chest cavity.
Men enhance their basic outfit by adding various combinations of natural or man-made ornaments to their daily dress. Kina shell breastplates, hornbill and pig tusk necklaces, cowrie shell necklaces, neck beads, earrings, arm and leg bands are all common adornments. Occasionally a nasal septum shaft is worn.
Undeniably, the most ornate part of their dress, as you may note from the photos, are their headdresses, which I will discuss in greater detail later in this post under Body Decoration.
Females
The main dress for women consists of a long grass skirt that hangs below the knees. The skirt is sometimes dyed black and paired with a European style smock (Mary blouse) purchased at Tari town. Older women may forgo covering her upper half and be seen walking along topless. Young women are forbidden to expose their breasts. Women are often seen wearing a kina shell breastplate, beaded necklaces and have flowers adorning their hair. Unlike the men, they do not wear leg bands, septum shafts or wigs.
The Ubiquitous Bilum
There is one article of clothing that both carry – the bilum or string bag. Huli women are usually seen carrying their string bags filled with sweet potatoes or even a baby! The bags are traditionally carried on their backs with the strap firmly in place across their foreheads. Huli men wear their string bags on their backs with the strap crossing their chests from the left to right shoulder and knotted in the middle of their chests. Typical items found in the men’s bilum include sweet potatoes, tobacco, a smoking pipe or hand rolled cigarettes, a packet of red paint, a mirror and money.
Body Decoration
The men wear a ceremonial wig (manda hare) which is dyed either bright red or black. It is then adorned with plumes of the cassowary, cockatoo, or the highly prized feathers of the bird of paradise. The men’s faces are painted entirely with ambua (yellow paint) and highlighted with various amounts of red, momo (white clay), and charcoal (black paint). Each man has his own unique facial design. Their bodies shine brilliantly from being rubbed in tree oil or pig fat.
Like most refined cultures, the Huli have a ceremonial attire and an everyday attire. The everyday attire is much less ornate and consists of a lighter colored every day wig (manda tene) coupled with minimal face paint.
Male Culture
A boy resides with his mother until he is seven or eight years old. After this age, his informal education begins as he moves into his father’s house or a designated boy’s house. Agriculturalists, his father teaches him about the gardens and ancestral trees and groves the Huli have planted and tended over many generations. The boys are also taught the fundamentals of building mud walls and making houses.
At approximately age twelve or thirteen, the boy enters a more intense period of informal education from his father and other adult males. He is instructed in the traditional beliefs about the male body and the necessary avoidance of women in order to grow into strong, successful men.
The young men are no longer permitted to mingle with women, eat food prepared by them or enter their homes. He is gifted gardens by his father and maternal grandfather and begins to cultivate his own crops. They are also instructed in marksmanship with the bow and arrow by hunting small prey. This is also when he begins his formal hair journey. Each day before dawn the young men must go to the forest to wash their hair and body with dew while reciting spells. Their hair is teased to form the shape of the manda tene or everyday wig.
Haroli Bachelor Cult
In the past, the formal education process commenced with enrollment at the Haroli bachelor cult school. Here the young men would undergo rites of passage, which emphasized masculine strength and endurance and included instruction in fertility rituals and ancestral rites and duties.
Initiated young men entered the cult for a period of 18 months to three years. While in the cult, they sat under the guidance of a permanent bachelor leader called a daloali. The Haroli live in seclusion hidden in a secret place deep in the Papua New Guinean jungles. Entrance into the cult was not free. The family of each young man paid the daloali in cash, with pigs or with cowrie shells. Only virgin males were accepted into the cult. The young men were then taught the spells, lore and techniques necessary to care for their wigs and bodies and to ensure good health and strength. They were trained to be self-reliant and to observe marital chastity.
The Warrior Mindset
In the era before the Australian administration warfare between clans was the dominant orientation of Huli Society. Most boys dreamed of becoming great warriors (wayali) and prepared themselves for that role from the time they first learned to use a bow and arrow. The initiates were instructed in the Huli philosophy of war, which maintains that revenge is the obligatory counteraction to breaches of norms. Such breaches demand the infliction of greater damage than received, through poisoning, sorcery and warfare. They were also trained in the manufacture of Huli weaponry: axe, bow, six types of arrows, bark shield and fighting pick. The young men were obligated to defend their clan unit during warfare with the same black palm bow they received upon completion of the first stage of their male initiation rite.
The Making of the Wigs
Under the guidance of the “wigmaster”, the boy’s hair is picked out and periodically splashed with ritual water. The young men must also ritually purify themselves and their hair with oils and herbs.
Throughout this period the boy never rests his head on a flat surface. He always sleeps using a headrest that prevents his hair from being flattened. Once the hair has attained the desired length, it is gradually shaped using a circular band of bamboo. Ultimately, the hair takes on a mushroom shape. Eventually, this band is replaced by an oblong one creating an effect similar to a toreador’s hat. After roughly 18 months, the entire coif is clipped off close to the scalp by a wig specialist. The hair is then reformed and manipulated to create the basis of the renowned Huli ceremonial wig (manda hare). The ceremonial wigs are made by combining two wigs and shaping them into a headdress. The completed headdress resembles the silhouette of a bird with outstretched wings.
Most Wigmen own more than one wig, but they must all be grown before they get married.
Some wigs are also sold to Huli men who don’t or can’t grow their own hair. I was told daily wigs can cost as much as K600-700, while the ceremonial ones can cost double that price or more depending on how ornate they are. As marriage is the next order of business upon graduating from school, this money helps pay for a bride.
Approximately five percent of all males, remain permanently single. The majority of men marry once they have grown a full beard.
Education at wig school
While at wig school, the men are also taught the fundamentals: rules of Huli traditional costumes, the collection of feathers and how to make armbands. Since Wigmen spend their formative years in wig school and don’t receive formal education in public schools, many are functionally illiterate. Most of them speak their own language, Huli, along with Tok Pisin, some of the surrounding languages and English. As you can imagine, wig school attendance is now also waning as opportunities for conventional schooling increase.
The Demise of the Cult
Now, the Haroli bachelor cult, which was the main educational structure of Huli male society has virtually disappeared. Instead of the concentrated instruction of the Bachelor cult, the young men receive an incapsulated version at “wig school”.
Many men have expressed a keen interest in re-establishing the cult in order to preserve Huli culture. The traditional way of life faces stiff competition from educational and employment opportunities. Younger men are attracted goals and lifestyles foreign to their way of life.
The Art of War
The Huli believe a human being is made of three entities: body (dongone), mind (mini) and spirit (dinini) and that it is possible to kill a person simply by killing any of those three components. The warriors believe in using the traditional weapons of warfare but also believe in invisible forces or sorcery. They believe the world contains vast energies of invisible spiritual and cosmic forces and that it is possible for humans to tap into and use those forces for either good or evil. Poisons (tomia), spells (gamugamu) and the invocation of spirits (dama) are all considered fair game when battling an enemy.
Huli warriors individually perform Timu Gamu (arrow sorcery) to ensure that their arrows hit the target.
The Huli culture is known for fierce warfare with most wars originating from personal disputes between individuals. The source of most major conflicts can be traced back to revenge killings, unpaid indemnities, or pig theft. While adultery, rape, land disputes and trespassing usually result in only minor skirmishes. Minor disagreements have been known to escalate into major battles when both parties enlist the assistance of their allies.
Conflict Resolution
While insults or injuries may be resolved with reparations or retaliation, it seems vengeance is the preferred mode of reconciliation for the Huli. Historically, wars were terminated by mutual agreement or mediation by neutral parties. Nowadays, full blown wars are increasingly rare, but when they do occur, the government is quick to intervene. The Tari District police station enlist the “riot squad” from Mendi to foster peace, usually by instilling fear into the aggressors by burning their gardens and houses and killing their pigs. This culture of counter vengeance ensures that the violence never truly ends.
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” – author unknown
While violence is not the only means of settling disputes, it seems vengeance is the preferred mode for the Huli.
Next Post: The Chimbu Tribe – Skeleton Men
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I am very proud of my culture and i notice some of my brothers with beautiful culture if any information about huli Wigmen email.
Hello! Yes, I would love it if some of the Huli Wigmen could respond and add to this narrative and also correct any information I may have gotten incorrect. Thank you so much! Your culture is fascinating and I am sad that it does not get the recognition it deserves.