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American Morning
CNN to Take Viewers on Trip to Papua New Guinea
Aired April 20, 2001 - 09:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: I said today that I want to do the travel segment, because Stephanie Oswald always goes to the funnest places. And today, it's Papua New Guinea.
So you're going a bit exotic today.
STEPHANIE OSWALD, CNN TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, it's very exotic. And we're headed to the southern highlands province of Papua New Guinea. It's a place where no native written word exists, but there are more than 700 spoken languages.
In this excerpt from tomorrow's program, I'd like you to meet the wigmen, the most famous symbol of the Huli culture.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OSWALD (voice-over): These men are wearing an ancient family tradition: spectacular wigs, made of real hair, decorated with natural elements, such as feathers, grass and flowers.
They perfect their makeup, hair and dress before making their appearance. Witnessing tribal traditions in a woodland clearing in the wilds of Papua New Guinea is a phenomenal experience.
This performance was arranged for our small tour group from the Ambua Lodge. But in this corner of the earth, each sing-sing dance has a special meaning. Sometimes this is the authentic way to say hello and welcome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in non-English language.)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the first place, he said he's happy to see the tourists coming to Papua New Guinea, and that's why they have the sing-sing here, to welcome you and to show that they are happy to meet you.
OSWALD: Other times, the ceremonial dance signals a war victory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they go out for tribal fighting and fight and kill a man, they come back to the tribe and organize a sing- sing like that because they're happy they have killed the enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in non-English language.)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said he is in traditional garb.
OSWALD: This boy says he's proud to carry on the Huli traditions, and he's happy the tourists bring money to the highlands.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: So it looks fascinating, but it also looks like it's not right next door. How do you get from here to there?
OSWALD: It's, actually, really far away. It took us about 24 hours to fly to Papua New Guinea, and that's one of the things about the place: A lot of people don't even know where it is. If you look on a map, you can see...
KAGAN: Help us with that.
OSWALD: Actually, from the United States, you fly out of Los Angeles, to Australia, and then you go to Port Moresby.
And you can see it's just north of Australia. It's the island of New Guinea, the eastern half of the island.
KAGAN: So how many plane rides is that: three or four plane rides, then?
OSWALD: It's about three plane rides to get the southern highlands province, because that's the interior.
KAGAN: I also noticed in the piece that, though the dancers were fascinating, I only saw men. No women were dancing.
OSWALD: That's right. One of the things about Papua New Guinea is that the culture is very male-centric, and it's one of those places where you go there as a Westerner and you're reminded that you really need to put yourself in their place and remember that not every place is like the United States. The division between men and women is very strong there.
KAGAN: And you had to respect their culture while you were there.
OSWALD: You did.
KAGAN: Is there more coming up tomorrow?
OSWALD: For the next two weeks, actually. We're going to show you two weeks of Papua New Guinea. Tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. and next week we will have diving in Papua New Guinea.
KAGAN: Really? Diving? OK, we'll look forward to that.
Stephanie Oswald, thanks so much.
OSWALD: Thank you.
KAGAN: Take us on that trip, that little getaway there. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
