my ethnographers adventure- Talulah May

 The Huli tribe has been misunderstood and misrepresented in media for centuries. My goal is to go to this nomadic tribe located in Papua New Guinea so I can understand and inform others of their lifestyles. They have never been observed, and are ignorant of other cultures, and I wish for my presence to leave no footprint. I solely want to understand them, not change them.

After 3 months of studying Huli culture, I've picked up on a few things. The men stay with their mothers till the age of 7, at this time they go with their fathers to learn how to survive. I stayed with a woman, and her son, and decorated by their hut are hats. They explained, as well as they could with the little English they knew, that the men made these as a representation of their strength. They would use their hair to make the hats, and I went to observe the men making them. Some of the village boys showed me how I could make my own, though women doing this is unheard of, they still persisted I made one. I'm assuming they aren't used to seeing women because they leave their home when they are 7, so seeing me must have excited them. They cut my heard and weaved it into a headdress. I wore this around as a sign of respect, this was til the women started urging me to take it off. They said it was purely a man's tradition, and as a woman, I was disrespecting their heritage. The men, who I saw as boys because they were only about 10, were punished for helping me. After that the towns boys didn't speak to me, for fear I would get them punished, again. 

I left shortly after that. With only being there 3 months, I disrupted their heritage and in return getting the young boys in trouble. I learned a lot and taught others that their culture isn't hostile or militant, but at the cost of harming their culture. It was hard to understand why such a small act created such a big controversy, but I realized that it's not my place to understand, just observe. That's why I left in such a rush, I realized my presence was more harmful to the people and was not worth the information I was trying to obtain. 

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