Skeleton Men of the Bugamo Tribe, Chimbu Province – Papua New Guinea

What better way to conquer your fears than by facing and embodying them?

The Bugamo Tribe – one of the more than a thousand cultural groups that exist in Papua New Guinea – live in Chimbu (Simbu) Province, high in the mountainous central highlands. Completely unknown to outsiders until the mid-1900s, elders tell stories about their first sighting of European missionaries – and thinking they were ancestor spirits. For generations, tribal groups fought with their neighbours over lands or imagined insults, and families still pay tribute to lost members. People lived traditional lives, looking after their pigs and crops, and traded with pigs, pig tusks, kina shells, stone axes, and feathers.

Little is known about the tradition behind the Skeleton Men’s full body paint. The story I like best is that “the ancestors were scared to go into the woods to hunt, gather and garden, because they believed a ghost that lives in the mountain will come down and devour them.” The men painted themselves like skeletons to frighten the ghost, and so were able to go about their business in peace.

Most Highland tribal groups were/are Animist, believing that spirits inhabit the land, animals, inanimate objects, plants, and rocks all around them. They worship their ancestors, and believe in masalai, or evil spirits, and the practice of puripuri (sorcery). So, according to other stories, an added bonus of the skeleton body paint is that it terrifies superstitious enemies!

Today, Bugamo dancers paint bones and skulls on their bodies to prepare for a sing sing – a festival of culture, music and dance – rather than for tribal war, and one of the silent story-dances they enact tells the tale of the brave hunters who rescued their children from the ghost, and performed a magic spell to scare it away.

I was travelling in Papua New Guinea with photographer  Karl Grobl from Jim Cline Photo Tours and a small group of photography enthusiasts. We arrived in Paiya  Village a day before their annual sing sing for a private session with three Asaro Mudmen (see: Asaro Mudmen), three Huli Wigmen (see: Huli Wigmen), and three Chimbu Skeleton Men. We watched and photographed as they applied their traditional face- and body-paint.

These three tribal groups couldn’t have been more different: unlike the formidable and glowering Huli and the quiet, retiring Asaro, the Skeleton men we worked with were a lot of fun. Two of them spoke a little English, making interactions with them easier. When they aren’t entertaining curious tourists, these men grow and market Highland coffee in their rugged, but fertile province.

Come watch as they get ready:

I find it fascinating that a culture that was isolated for so long, and that in most ways is so different from ours, has nevertheless come up with symbolism we recognise immediately. Some archetypes are, indeed, universal.

Until next time,

Happy Rambling! 

Pictures: 17August2017