BORMANN: In the cloud-cloaked jungles of PNG’s southern highlands, live a people who’ve resisted every intrusion of Western civilisation. The Huli people only met their first European 70 years ago. The men are warriors. Their tribes are in constant conflict and only a peace deal brokered with land and pigs can settle them down again.
This is also a place where appearance is everything. To be anyone of influence, you need to look the part. Here you need a head of hair to get ahead. These men might be the fiercest warriors in PNG but they do have a tender side. At a sacred river they bond by preening each other. Huli men have an obsession with hair. They can’t grow enough of it and when they do, they keep it forever preserving it in wigs that sometimes take years to construct.
HAROLD HAYAKE: It is very important for a young Huli boy to have a wig. That’s a very important part of their life. That’s why the boys go to the wig school.
BORMANN: Harold Hayake is going back to wig school. He spent four years studying the art of hair arrangement as part of his initiation to manhood but a tribal dispute means he can’t return home to retrieve his own wigs.
HAROLD HAYAKE: A day wig is made up of human hair. It takes about eighteen months for a boy to have a wig – and just a frame and a string inside the wig that holds the hair to its shape and size.
BORMANN: To grow good healthy hair, the young men live together in a monastic lifestyle under the guidance of the wig master. Contact with women is banned. It’s only after they leave here they can marry. They symbolically cleanse themselves of their mother’s blood and several times a day they must sprinkle with magic water. The wig students play possum to demonstrate to me what they do at night. No Huli man would ever dream of sleeping on his hair. This is the life Wilhelm Minai has endured for six years.
WILHELM MINAI: It’s hard, but we like it. We can’t go to places we want to, a woman can’t give us food – we have to look for our own food. That makes it difficult.
BORMANN: Down the track from the wig school, Huli villagers live off anything the land can provide. It’s a segregated community. The women and young children live together and keep pigs. The men and boys sleep in separate huts. Huli matriarch Maliyako chides the menfolk for their laziness.
MALIYAKO: Men are lucky – they have nothing much to do – I have to collect firewood, I have to tend to the garden – and cook food for all of these kids sitting here.
BORMANN: The wig men might not work very hard but they do have something else to worry about. This part of Papua New Guinea is in a state of perpetual war. Each year dozens of men and boys die in tribal fights and government authorities seem powerless to stop it.
HAROLD HAYAKE: The fight is always over woman, land and pig. The bow and arrow is the principal weapon and we fight with spears… and it’s called Highlands football. A lot of people say here that… when there’s a fight, let’s go for a game. So boys like fighting. It’s a man’s job.
BORMANN: Back at school, the students are in trouble. The hair for their future day wigs is not growing as it should. The wig master suspects his pupils are hampering the growth of their hair by wandering too far from school.
WIG MASTER: [Inspecting students] This fellow’s hair is tearing – it’s not staying together. Make sure you stay within your boundaries in the bush. Yours as well – this hair is tearing because it’s been tampered with.
BORMANN: This remote and secluded corner of Papua New Guinea is not likely to give up its traditions and its ancient culture easily. Just like his ancestors, the Huli warrior will continue to life with just four concerns – his wife, his land, his pigs and his wigs.
This is also a place where appearance is everything. To be anyone of influence, you need to look the part. Here you need a head of hair to get ahead. These men might be the fiercest warriors in PNG but they do have a tender side. At a sacred river they bond by preening each other. Huli men have an obsession with hair. They can’t grow enough of it and when they do, they keep it forever preserving it in wigs that sometimes take years to construct.
HAROLD HAYAKE: It is very important for a young Huli boy to have a wig. That’s a very important part of their life. That’s why the boys go to the wig school.
BORMANN: Harold Hayake is going back to wig school. He spent four years studying the art of hair arrangement as part of his initiation to manhood but a tribal dispute means he can’t return home to retrieve his own wigs.
HAROLD HAYAKE: A day wig is made up of human hair. It takes about eighteen months for a boy to have a wig – and just a frame and a string inside the wig that holds the hair to its shape and size.
BORMANN: To grow good healthy hair, the young men live together in a monastic lifestyle under the guidance of the wig master. Contact with women is banned. It’s only after they leave here they can marry. They symbolically cleanse themselves of their mother’s blood and several times a day they must sprinkle with magic water. The wig students play possum to demonstrate to me what they do at night. No Huli man would ever dream of sleeping on his hair. This is the life Wilhelm Minai has endured for six years.
WILHELM MINAI: It’s hard, but we like it. We can’t go to places we want to, a woman can’t give us food – we have to look for our own food. That makes it difficult.
BORMANN: Down the track from the wig school, Huli villagers live off anything the land can provide. It’s a segregated community. The women and young children live together and keep pigs. The men and boys sleep in separate huts. Huli matriarch Maliyako chides the menfolk for their laziness.
MALIYAKO: Men are lucky – they have nothing much to do – I have to collect firewood, I have to tend to the garden – and cook food for all of these kids sitting here.
BORMANN: The wig men might not work very hard but they do have something else to worry about. This part of Papua New Guinea is in a state of perpetual war. Each year dozens of men and boys die in tribal fights and government authorities seem powerless to stop it.
HAROLD HAYAKE: The fight is always over woman, land and pig. The bow and arrow is the principal weapon and we fight with spears… and it’s called Highlands football. A lot of people say here that… when there’s a fight, let’s go for a game. So boys like fighting. It’s a man’s job.
BORMANN: Back at school, the students are in trouble. The hair for their future day wigs is not growing as it should. The wig master suspects his pupils are hampering the growth of their hair by wandering too far from school.
WIG MASTER: [Inspecting students] This fellow’s hair is tearing – it’s not staying together. Make sure you stay within your boundaries in the bush. Yours as well – this hair is tearing because it’s been tampered with.
BORMANN: This remote and secluded corner of Papua New Guinea is not likely to give up its traditions and its ancient culture easily. Just like his ancestors, the Huli warrior will continue to life with just four concerns – his wife, his land, his pigs and his wigs.