Goroka Show

A gathering of tribes

A sing-sing is a gathering of tribes or villages in Papua New Guinea, where people show their distinct culture, dance and music and share traditions, painting and decorating themselves for the occasion. The Goroka Show, officially the Eastern Highlands Agricultural Show, is the best known. It was started in 1956 on the initiative of Australian kiaps; the first show was attended by some 10,000 local people and by visitors from around Papua New Guinea and Australia. Today about a hundred tribes come to Goroka to show their music, dance and culture. Similar shows are now held in Mount Hagen and other towns, but Goroka’s remains the largest cultural event in the country; the 60th show, in 2016, brought more than 120 groups and thousands of foreign visitors.

The Mudmen

The show’s most famous performers, the Asaro Mudmen, took their present form there. They are the Holosa of the Asaro valley near Goroka, who wear masks of clay and paint their bodies white. According to research by the anthropologist Ton Otto, the practice comes from the village of Komunive, where in the late 19th century a man named Bukiro Pote covered a head frame with mud as a disguise. His grandson Ruipo Okoroho revived it for the 1957 show, when the masks became more elaborate works of art and the body was painted white to match; the 200 masked men won first prize for tribal finery. Another tribe named them holosa, “ghost”, and a dance was created in which the wearers move as if their bones were broken, swatting away flies drawn to rotting flesh. There are many legends of their origin, told, as one anthropologist put it, in as many versions as there are sources.

The masks are made from clay from the Asaro River, which is said not to crack as it dries, and are decorated with pigs’ teeth and shells; performers also wear long bamboo fingers. The Mudmen have become a symbol of Goroka and the highlands and a recognisable image of Papua New Guinea around the world.