These female dancers from Mt Hagen in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea are masked in trade store paint.

Buried in a chaos of adornment which includes threaded seeds, fur, feathers, shells of all sizes and decorative items collected over the years, they sway gently in unison as strong native hands slowly pound a rhythm to their softly murmured song.

Some of the feathers have been handed down from generation to generation and the carefully threaded pit pit seeds are mixed with plastic bangles and pop beads.

The dancer's adornment is completed with old glass beads, some dating back to the Europeans' first intrusion into this unspoilt and wonderful land.

Their bodies are oiled and the greenery plucked, folded and carefully arranged just for this day.



PLEASE NOTE: All images have been cropped slightly for display online. Whilst care has been taken to ensure that the images are as close as possible to those of the original paintings, no allowance is made for any varience in monitor contrast or brightness settings or resolution. The actual image sizes are shown seperately under "Prices and Image Sizes".