Beyond Rye – Papua New Guinea, A Journey at the Fringe of the Stone Age

– By Enzo Repola –

I like to travel to places that tour operators do not typically include in their brochures. I have visited places where Westerners are as rare as snowflakes in the Sonora Desert. Still, I was filled with excited expectation when the small plane, on the occasion of my third trip to Papua New Guinea, was close to landing at the tiny Mount Hagen airport in the Western Highlands province.

The mountains and the valleys we were flying over were covered by thick, dark green vegetation occasionally interrupted by stripes of land where the natives grow their vegetables. Small cabins were scattered without an apparent order. I was landing with my Habitat for Humanity team in an area that was explored for the first time some seventy years ago. Since then, contact of the local people with the external world has been mainly limited to the small town of Mount Hagen, a place where, according to some tourist guides, there is a feeling of “the wild west”.

Our destination was a village called Ruti, a few hours’ drive east of Mount Hagen. I had been told the first U.S. team to visit the province had created a high level of excitement. For the first time ever, a group of white people was going to stay for over two weeks in the village, a village whose inhabitants used to live at a Stone-Age level up to a couple of generations ago. How would the natives react to our presence?

We had our answer when we arrived at a large field near Ruti. Hundreds of people, perfectly still and silent, were waiting for us, their mouths wide open. I was later told that a large number of them had traveled long distances to see the “people from America”.

At somebody’s command, a group dressed and painted according to their tribal traditions started dancing and singing, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of drums. As if awoken, the crowd started singing, their arms pointed to the sky. We were invited to proceed and so we did, having two lines of enthusiastically screaming people at both sides of the road, and those with the drums following us. Arms were extended for handshakes and somebody approached us for a quick hug, saying something in their language. Everybody was smiling. It was the friendliest, noisiest, and most chaotic welcome I ever experienced.

We integrated ourselves fairly well in the routine of village life. Our accommodation was a modest, clean little house surrounded by cabins. At around 4 a.m. a cacophony of roosters woke us. Our morning destination was a nearby river for a refreshing bath. The locals were already there getting water for their daily use. We exchanged greeting and smiles to naked children, and half-naked adults. On our way to the build site we had to shake dozens of hands, that being the local custom for strangers to say “hello” to each other. There were a few more cabins around the house we were building and a “community kitchen” was located nearby. That kitchen was a large hole lined with banana leaves and filled with hot stones. More leaves were placed on the stones and, atop them the people put sweet potatoes, taro, and other vegetables.

A number of old people were sitting around watching us work. I could see that most of them had holes in their nostrils, and tattoos on their faces. I eventually found a man who spoke good English and started peppering him with questions on life before the first encounter with western civilization. This man, his western name being Joshua, told me proudly, “I was born in the stone age”. I learned that his father had six wives and numerous children. When he was a kid, the fights between tribes were as “frequent as rain in the wet season”. The missionaries that arrived in the area changed their way of living forever. Dresses were introduced, children went to school, tools were imported. He admitted to being nostalgic for the “old” way of living.

If the welcome ceremony was a little chaotic, the farewell one was colorful due to the presence of various groups dressed in traditional tribal costumes. We had finished our house and everybody was extremely happy. Thousands of people showed up for a full day of dances, songs and speeches. I have to admit that being there was like being home far from home.