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Image no. 203848
The Huli were never so much a project as a childhood dream
come true. Over several years beginning in the mid-1980's I
had the extraordinary privilege of visiting the Tagali Valley,
home of the Huli. The late afternoon that I drove over the
treefern dotted pass from Mendi, in the Papua New Guinean
Highlands, I felt as though I was voyaging 40,000 years into the
past, the place of old black and white newsreels. My first
image of a Huli, "Wigman", as they are often called, was an old
man, carrying a huge yam, and costumed in several orbits of
colorful neck beads and a veil of strings shrouding his loins.
Over the coming years, I spent weeks and months at a time
living with the Huli - primarily in Tari, Pureni, and mountain top
huts. On more than one occasion I met children and adults
that had never seen a white-skinned person. In one remote
village, kids thought I was a ghost. The Huli were my first
opportunity to experience people removed from the
voluminous crap and issues that clutter our "modern" lives - it
was insightful, illuminating and made me begin questioning the
essentials of being human. Photographically, the image of
"primitive man" or "noble savage" was furthest from my interest.
My ambition was to record a vision of Huli life that would
someday be valuable to young Huli's searching for their past in
a changing world. Ironically, the portrait above, was taken at
the request of the young man, atypical of the majority of
daily-life images I created.
come true. Over several years beginning in the mid-1980's I
had the extraordinary privilege of visiting the Tagali Valley,
home of the Huli. The late afternoon that I drove over the
treefern dotted pass from Mendi, in the Papua New Guinean
Highlands, I felt as though I was voyaging 40,000 years into the
past, the place of old black and white newsreels. My first
image of a Huli, "Wigman", as they are often called, was an old
man, carrying a huge yam, and costumed in several orbits of
colorful neck beads and a veil of strings shrouding his loins.
Over the coming years, I spent weeks and months at a time
living with the Huli - primarily in Tari, Pureni, and mountain top
huts. On more than one occasion I met children and adults
that had never seen a white-skinned person. In one remote
village, kids thought I was a ghost. The Huli were my first
opportunity to experience people removed from the
voluminous crap and issues that clutter our "modern" lives - it
was insightful, illuminating and made me begin questioning the
essentials of being human. Photographically, the image of
"primitive man" or "noble savage" was furthest from my interest.
My ambition was to record a vision of Huli life that would
someday be valuable to young Huli's searching for their past in
a changing world. Ironically, the portrait above, was taken at
the request of the young man, atypical of the majority of
daily-life images I created.