PAPUA

It has been many years since I wanted to visit Papua New
Guinea, to experience the authenticity of its culture
and the unchanged way of life of its residents. Τhis was not,
however, a journey that one can easily decide upon. The
information available on the country is minimal, the tourism
infrastructure almost non-existent, whilst it is plagued by
malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases. Moreover, tribal
clashes are not rare; these are small-scale but particularly
violent, conflicts usually involving a local character that can
keep the visitor trapped in a dangerous region for many days.
It is not a coincidence that the country has only 40,000 foreign
visitors each year.
Yet, all this is only one side of the coin; on the other is the
discovery of a country that has been left untouched by the
passage of time, covering in just a few decades the dizzying
distance from the Neolithic period to the modern world, the
singular feeling of encountering a society that stubbornly
insists on sticking to its primeval traditions. So, in August
2009 –the best month to visit the country in order to experience
the wonderful Mt Hagen Sing-Sing, the country’s largest festival
– I was there.
It is truly very difficult for me to describe the surprise I felt
when i found myself, for the first time, in the sanctum of an
aboriginal village and an ancient civilisation, unchanged for
millennia. You have the feeling of having just travelled in time:
from the high-tech era of globalisation and communications, to
the age of tools, hunting and magic, at the dawn of human life.
However much one might try, it is impossible to “fit” such
a distinctive country into economic figures, political practices
and demographic equations. Tradition surfaces everywhere and
composes a perfectly harmonised universe of primitive farming,
ancient customs and an economic outlook that is foreign to us
and limited to necessities. Even the meaning of democracy, a
“The world only exits when it is shared”
Tasos Livaditis, Greek poet
foundation stone of modern states based on the rule of law, can
be understood only with difficulty by the different tribes of the
hinterland, which have been based for centuries now on the
power of the tribal shaman and the counsel of the elders who,
in a land where few reach an old age, are clearly considered
holders of invaluable experience and wisdom.
Until 1930, the hinterland had not been explored at all; the
Europeans considered these wild and mountainous regions as
inhospitable for living in. Only in the mid-20th century did a
couple of Australian gold diggers, who were searching for gold
deposits at higher altitudes, discovered, amazed, that around
a million people lived in these wild areas, isolated from the
fertile mountain valleys and preserving a civilisation almost
unchanged since Neolithic times. This was an astonishing
discovery for the Western world as at that time everyone
believed that the planet had been fully explored and mapped
in detail: given the sight of such a primitive society, scientists –
botanists, anthropologists and archaeologists – politicians and
journalists, proved unable to rise to the occasion and, without
prior research, debate and reflection, suddenly invaded this
foreign world, bearing the miracles of technology and their
Western culture to people completely unprepared for such a
change. Thankfully, however, even in our days, the exceptional
difficulty in accessing their hinterland and the refusal of
the inhabitants to lose their cultural identity has meant that
European influence has been relatively limited.
Today the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, as it is
officially known, is a state that is working hard to modernise
and to battle diseases, illiteracy and barbaric customs wherever
they still exist. It is transitioning from a barter economy to a
money economy, and hopes in the future to see its great natural
and mineral wealth being put to use. It is not easy however to
subdue a people that has learnt to live free, organised in small
independent social groupings comprised of a few villages; a
people that has learnt to apply a system of justice devised not
by legislators but by centuries and myths. It is thus difficult
to uproot the practice of centuries, of superstitions and selfgoverned
and autonomous local societies from the life of the
Papua overnight.
My journey to New Guinea gave me unique experiences but
above all it gave me the gift of a colourful society that is very
old and that follows the thread of its own distinctive history.
And yet I found myself unprepared – truth be told, no one can
prepare themselves for what they will see in front of them –
within these colours, dances, isolated tribes, strange languages;
I felt a foreigner – burdened with the baggage of a completely
different culture – and the great need to find an object that
was mine, something familiar and loved to have as my ally.
So I kept my camera; an achievement of digital technology
a worthy representative of my familiar world, searching with
its lens to find not only what separates us from these people
but also what unites us. No matter how many journeys one
might take, whichever part of the planet they may find
themselves, every time they will see the cheeky smile of a
child, the impetuous gaze of the adults and the stoic, welcome
expression of the elders demonstrating that, under the
successive layers of culture, we all have the same face, the same
voice, the same body.
After many days in this strange and wonderful land I
considered that I had by now formed a fairly complete picture
of it: I’d explored the Highlands, their wonderful mountains
and local tribes, I’d seen their greatest festival, the unique
Mount Hagen Sing-sing, I’d toured the banks of the Sepik, the
largest river, had faced the ocean at Madang beach and had
visited some of the islands. After all this wandering I once more
felt my values being shaken. No one doubts that it is imperative
that steps are taken – and immediately – for modernisation and
to fight the spread of diseases, illiteracy and the often barbaric
customs and inhumane rituals. What, however, is the correct
way to make such a violent intervention into the history of a
place more moderate, to smooth its transition to a new reality?
Do others, in this case us, the developed nations; decide on
the fate of people unable to respond in the face of the cultural
steamroller of technology? Are we to take the risk that, along
with all that is wrong in these primitive societies, their valuable
individuality will also be lost, their completely idiosyncratic
view of life, the hundreds of languages, their unique art?
How can we be sure that the society of the Papua will adjust
smoothly to a world that, to its eyes, seems to be coming from
the far future?
Yes, I was certainly delighted with the wonderful journey
that was coming to a close, for having had the good fortune to
touch for myself something so primitive and authentic. Even so,
I could not avoid a feeling of imperceptible sorrow, a nostalgia
for something that will be lost: a mud village, a beseeching
popular belief, a unique language; a pure piece of human
history, true and undefended.
THE INHABITANTS AND THEIR DAILY LIVES
Whichever part of the country I went to I encountered
people who were calm and true; people who moved about with
humility and an inherent dignity that was in complete harmony
with their natural environment and who were reconciled to
the innate difficulties it entailed. You believe that in their every
movement, in their colorful costumes and the strange steps
of their dances, you are witnessing an unending attempt to
appease the bad spirits, the wrath of nature and their vengeful
gods (despite the establishment of Christianity, the primeval
beliefs still maintain a prominent position in religious life).
A main feature, however, of their social and cultural life is the
globally unique heterogeneity of the population. The indigenous
population is divided into thousands of different communities,
most of which only number a few hundred members. With their
own customs and their own languages and traditions, many
of these groups have been in conflict with their neighboring
tribes for millennia. In some cases, because of the mountainous
landscape and the isolation it imposes, many were completely
unaware of neighboring tribes who lived only a few kilometers
away. This heterogeneity, the differences in the bosom of one
people, which can perhaps best be summed up in one of the
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