Essay Sample on Exploring the Life of the Huli Wigmen in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

It is quite reasonable to expect the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea to get contained by a lot of wild people. And they are. The place is a home of over 300 different communities (Strathern & Stewart, 2015). The Huli Wigmen are among the people who live around the area. They get found around the Tari region of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where they get believed to have lived for over 1,000 years (Biersack, 2013). The members of the clan get believed to have descended from Huli, a male ancestor.

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The Huli Wigmen are a clan that is well known for inhabiting other families within the region of the Southern Highlands in various villages around Papua New Guinea. Commonly they are known because of their masterful "hairstylists" who are good at crafting flamboyant wigs from their hair and are also well known due to they vast fierce warriors around the region of Papua New Guinea.

Concerning the tribe, not a lot gets known about them regarding their tradition of making flamboyant wigs from their hair. When the tribe came to limelight of the researchers their were already practicing their culture and customs. Because researchers believe that they started to live in the region more than 1,000 years ago, their tradition must have been established and developed back then during the period of the establishment of the tribe in the area (Biersack, 2013).

When males from the tribe are in their early 20's or late teenage years, there are excommunicated from the community to join the bachelor school (Strathern & Stewart, 2015). At the bachelor school, the young men get taught by the older men from the village about manhood based on their traditions and customs. The young men also get taught how to make beautiful wigs from their hair. It is part of a passage of rite where a very young man in the community gets expected to pass through. The young men are excommunicated from the community to the jungle for at least around 18 months. During this time, they get taught different customs of the community, after which one can choose to return to the community or decide to stay in the jungle for a longer time to improve his skills and knowledge concerning various customs of the tribe.

For the process of growing wigs to kick off, the trainees get required to grow their hair. When the hair is of the desirable size, the training of shaping the wigs kicks off while the trainees still have their hair on their heads, no detachment of hair from their heads. The saucer-like shape is the most common is the young men are required to go to sleep accompanied by bricks and other objects which are attached under their heads to prevent them from getting to the ground and make the hair to get flattened. For a beautiful wig, it takes the young men around six months; at this time, the hair is big enough, and its size is very desirable to make a beautiful wig. During this period, the wig gets cut off from underneath (Glasse, 2018). In earlier times, the men would separate the scalp from hair using a bamboo; however, nowadays, the use of knives has become common among the Hali's. After the removal of wigs, they get decorated with bird feathers. The feathers are from different birds, including cassowaries, birds of paradise, and parrots. The men usually come from bachelor schools with two to three wigs. The Huli men do not live together with women, nor eat or sleep in the same bed. Their mothers raise their children. The men occasionally spend time with their women, but for most of their time, they spend with their fellow warriors.

References

Biersack, A. (2013). Beyond "Cargo Cult": Interpreting Mata Kamo. Kago, Kastom, and Kalja: The Study of Indigenous Movements in Melanesia Today, 85.

Glasse, R. M. (2018). Huli of Papua: a cognatic descent system (Vol. 8). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Strathern, A., & Stewart, P. J. (2015). Groups. In Kinship in Action (pp. 72-99). Routledge.