We started the day with a trudge uphill to the prime birding spot and after a little wait were rewarded with sightings, three of them new. First…
then a prize…
and finally…
It was being coy, behind the tree, and the video is a bit shaky – so some screen shots…
For reference, these are web photos:
My expectations having been curbed, I was grateful for this personal glimpse of one of nature’s most beautiful creatures.
Our itinerary for the day was three village visits, starting at a local farm…
whose owner explained his sweet potato cultivation.
Notice the girl Dana was talking to in the previous picture. She was practicing her English with Dana, and favored her with a freshly picked bouquet as we left.
We then dropped in on an inter-village dispute debate – according to James, our guide, involving an assault by one village’s young man upon another village’s young man.
James said the general court system would accept the agreement reached by the villages in the dispute, unless there was an ongoing threat.
As we left the village, I got this shot of its cemetery – on the hill in the background – obviously a place of prominence.
Along our way we had seen many places where folks were standing at the side of the road with bags of coffee – the biggest cash crop in the Mt. Hagen area. At one such place a coffee buyer was weighing bags for purchase and transport/sale to a coffee mill…
on his truck.
At another, coffee beans were drying on mats…
The man in the blue shirt was James, our excellent guide at Mt. Hagen. The guy in the purple shirt was our host farmer. On the way back to his place he talked with me about the difficulty of passing land and traditional beliefs on to his sons.
The visit with him was especially poignant, as it involved his narration and demonstrations of the calling of spirits, practices still observed in some remote areas.
First, the calling of the spirit of a deceased victim of a wrong caused by another person, starting with a fire to attract the spirit’s attention.
then an attempt to call…
setting up stakes and a wire to allow the spirit to show its presence…
then some wind and movement of the wire showing presence of the spirit (no idea how they did it but there was movement and a little sudden breeze), capturing it with its full weight…
and carrying it to the village where it is buried in a place of honor…
for the elders to implore the perp to identify himself, confess, and apologize, or face being responsible for calamity visited on the village by the wronged spirit. If the perp confesses, there is no punishment. They apparently usually do, thereby appeasing the spirit.
Next were demos of group calling of spirits for help with harvests or healing sick.
We were offered a Q and A, and I asked the tall guy, second from right, why he participated. He said it made him feel strong and proud of his heritage.
At the next village we saw a reenactment of a tribal battle. First a man is gathering a crop on his tribe’s land.
He is attacked by a man from another tribe wanting to steal the land and crops.
The man drives off the intruder, whose village then attacks and drives the residents off of their land.
But then the ousted residents counter-attack and regain their land.
After which they have a funeral to honor their dead…
Due to approaching rain, we continued well into the afternoon, before stopping for lunch in the van at the side of the road, and then headed back to the lodge.
Not much else of interest for the day.
Dana and Roger Travels 