VISION

SOUND

Group with rattles (Tape 1 -18'00")

NATSOT

Group dances

(VO Hagon: Tape 1 - 02'01") "I suppose it was based on our philosophy as Australians of the annual agricultural shows you see in provinces and districts down there. But it evolved from that into, into our realisation that we were really talking about a cultural extravaganza, I suppose, if you like."

Red Faces jumping (Tape 1- 19'50")

NATSOT TRACK

Montage of faceS

End with jet black face (Tape 1 - 22'40")

VO: Dick Hagan, coffee planter and plantation manager, has seen them all. He helped organise the first Mount Hagen Show more than 30 years ago

Dick &. wife walk alongside Black group

(VO Hagan: 1 - 04'58") ·"They were looking at us while we were locking at them. Because we were just as strange· to them as they were to us."

Film Aust footage

Viceroy arrives

(VO Viceroy: FA - 07'47") ~r greet you all here today on behalf of the ·Commonwealth of Australia and in the name of Her Majesty the Queen. I now declare this show open."

(VO Hagon 05'05") This all happened within 30 years of the outside people ever coming into this province. (Edit 06'47") It showed tribal people living in land locked valleys and behind high mountains that had never been out of their, sort of, chosen captivity ever before that there was an outside world.

More from FA tape

FA Tape 17'50"

Simon Kuk (Tape 3)

simon & Dick (Tape- 3 14'30")

(va Hagon: 07' 27") "In the showground arena there were just acres of these people. It was like seeing; Birds of Paradise feathers were like looking over the wind blowing over a wheat crop. As they all moved together it was, ah, (laughs) a fantastic sight."

(Kuk:  Tape 3 18'01") "In the 60s they had these Shows that, urn / the Kiaps were ere, the patrol ,officers and all those guys-;' -And they were, you know, 'tough at that time. 'And - when _-they said, 'You people come from Eastern Highlands Goroka, you people come

from Mendi or whatever.' They just came free of charge! No charge whatsoever."

VO: Simon Kuk is t e latest Chairman of the Show Society, and he's had to battle big odds to revive the Mount Hagen Show including rebuilding the actual showgrouns.

Tracking shot inside showgrounds (Tape 1 ­14'45")

Simon talking

(va Kuk: 3 - 15'45") The local people here were not used, their service or manpower was not used by the previous Show Society. So they came and pulled down the place And nobody would come back again to get the place up because I ah. And then I had to do plenty of negotiation work and I was a peacemaker.

Tambul Group (Tape 1 ­17' 25")

Tambul Boast Super Translation

Tambuls stamp off (Tape 1 - 17'40")

VO: The Hagen Show is gradually getting back to its former glory.

(1 - 17'28") "Mipela _lain long Tambul ya. (Our group is from - J'ambul. )

Mipela bus lain long Southern Highlands stret. (We'rebush people from the Southern Higblan4s.) Las taim mipela go antap long Enga na winim firs prais tru. (Just recently we won first prize at Enga.) Na las sho bilonq Enga, er, firs sho bilong

            Enga nau.         That's the show (That's the show just held, the first ever in the Enga Province.) Nau mipela traim-gen long hir. (We're going for first prize here now. )"

NATSOT

Groups file out (Tape2- 07'20")

VO:"The Show goes on for three days and so the elaborate preparations have to be done again and again. Each morning the dancers spend up to two hours getting ready.

Montage of preparation shots (Tapes 2 &. 3)

NATSOT

Fellow with mirror (Tape 2 19'15")

(Maria: 2 - 15'40") "Cuscus feathers and the white ones' that we wear are like chicken feathers."

(Sean:) "And these black ones?" (Maria:) "Black ones are cassowaries. The feathers of cassowaries,"

Maria Nombri intv

VO: Maria Nombri is from the mountainous Chimbu Province wedged between the Eastern and Western Highlands valleys. She's the younger sister of Papua New Guinea's former Ambassador to Japan.

Cutaways (2': 17^'15" of' her decorations

VO: Without doubt the people getting the best deal at this Hagen Show are the tourists.

Maria (Tape 2 - 13'20")

VO; Happy snaps with Stone Age man!

Sequence of Maria in line/going in/dancing (Tape 3 - 07^'50-09^'45")

Tourists (2 - 00'15")

High shot tourists in

VO: But few ventured outside to meet the modern day Papua New Guineans out here where the PNG adaption betting on darts - it's called ‘Spia' - is very popular.

Sequence o£ me buying the darts/him explaining     & then me throwing.

NATSOT

Pick up voiceover on dart thudding into wood/reaction (Tape 5)

VO: Well, of course, my forebears were more adept at wielding sheleilies than spears.

NATSOT

Mock Tribal Fight (4 - 22'12")

vo: Back in the main arena the real spears were being used in a demonstration tribal fight.

NATSOT

?ick the best shots off the tapes

Hagon & me (Tape 1 ­5'50")

(VO: Hagon - 08'41") "People are

beginning to realise here that with, with westernisation and the advent of second hand clothing and so on, everyone's losing, leaving their tribal costumes, that their culture's just dying out. And so everybody's being encouraged, even through the education system to hang onto their traditions, exercise them, and this is a very good way or doing that."

VO; Dick Hagan says decorative adoption is exceptionally lively.

More groups

Black painted group (Tape 1 - 22'30")

(VO Hagan - 09^'l0") "I mean you'll find a situation where, for example, the people that, there are certain tribes in the Sepik who will, whose tradition it is for certain ceremonies to just cover their naked· bodies in black ash. And so now you see some of the Hagen people with black ash on their face. And you'll see other people, ah, there was some tribe out in the Southern Highlands that used to wear some of this, this moss that grows in very high mountains and so on as part of their decoration. You see people from other tribes wearing that sort of thing. And so there is a, there is a mixture of all this sort of thing. There's a bit more artistic licence creeping into it. And, and, you know, face paints and so on are, are being used more and so, you know, rather than losing their culture and so on in some cases all this sort of intermixing is enriching it all. "

Other groups

Women face painting

(Tape 3 - 01'56")

Then there's the innate talent to poke fun at the former colonial power.

Platoon marches in {Tape .4 - 08'48")

Platoon / Commander 

(Richard: 4 - 11'00") "1 am representing as a, as a white man who first commanded the first recruited PNGs in the colonial days."

Platoon drills & march (Tape 4 - 12'50")

Improvised drum band

(Tape . - 09'l0")

simon Kuk (Tape 3)

Montage of other groups (Tapes 1/2/3/4)

Face with tear streaks (Tape 4 - 00'50")

NATSOT

VO: And what's this! The Royal Kerosine Drums and Mouth Organ Megaphone band?

(VO Hagon: 10' 05") "As long as the nation can keep itself together and live in peace these things should go on. And I really fervently hope that tourism will develop in this country and foster more of this ·sort of thing And that they can actually earn something out of this very unique, world unique situation they've got here.

NATSOT

(VO Hagon: 11'10") "And, you know, you get an adrenalin rush that never finishes here. (Laughs) "

ENDS