Search Results for: paiya It was a bit of an anti-climax … After several days in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, mingling with and photographing the myriad of fascinating and colourful tribes who had come to participate in the annual Mt Hagen Cultural Show (see: Mt Hagen) and the smaller, more intimate Paiya Show (see: Paiya Village), we were […]  In communities without a written language, culture is passed down through the oral traditions of art, story-telling, music, and dance. Even architecture and weaponry can signify meaning. In Papua New Guinea, there are more than more than 850 discrete spoken languages, and until recently, none of them were written down. Even today, adult literacy sits […]  I don’t know how many of Papua New Guinea’s more than 7000 different cultural groups live in the wide, fertile valleys and surrounding mountainous jungles of the Highlands in the country’s interior, but there are a lot! The Highlands were first populated about 50,000 years ago by nomadic foragers. By 10,000 years ago, people were […]  They are as colourful and distinctive as the birds of paradise that live high in the jungle tree-tops. Today, the iconic Huli Wig Men of Hela Province in the Southern Highlands are immediately recognisable from advertising campaigns promoting travel and sing sings (festivals of culture, music and dance) in Papua New Guinea. Less than 100 years ago, however, […]  Papua New Guinea is a veritable pastiche of colours and customs, jungle noises and music, tribal warfare and elaborately costumed dance. Creation myths abound, wending their way through oral history and everyday life, so that ancient legends are transformed into marketing strategies, and no one can be sure any longer which is which. That is […] |
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