These mysterious lands which seem to rise out of the clouds are the Highlands,
in the east of the island of New Guinea, to the north of Australia.
The western half of the island is Irian Java, part of Indonesia,
and this, the eastern half, is Papua New Guinea.
The country includes over 1,400 islands, both large and small
In PNG, as this country is popularly known,
there are around a thousand distinct ethnic groups,
speaking over eight hundred different languages.
The fierce nature of these tribes, the practice of cannibalism
and the fact that some groups cut off the heads of their enemies
all this made the island a fearful place, which travellers tried to avoid.
Sailors who did find themselves sailing close to these coasts
told of how the natives had attacked them from the cliffs,
leaving the decks of their ships covered in arrows and spears,
and crew members wounded.
New Guinea was a remote place that no one dared approach,
and so it remained unexplored for many years.
In fact, until the start of the nineteenth century
when the English and the Germans took possession of some coastal areas,
New Guinea did not even appear on maps of the world.
And here, in the Highlands, there was no contact with the natives until the twentieth century.
1930, to be precise, when Michael Leahy and Michael Dwyer,
searching for gold, climbed the eastern flanks and discovered a million people,
belonging to over four hundred different tribes.
This region is very rugged, a series of mountains reaching heights of up to 4,000 metres,
and forming numerous valleys of dense vegetation,
where the different ethnic groups live practically isolated from each other.
The majority of the villages are inhabited by just one family, or a single clan.
The houses are made of bamboo, with rooves of palm leaf.
Yam, yucca, maize and sweet potatoes make up their daily diet.
The main source of protein is the pigs, which they take great care of:
they live in an enclosure joined to the house, and are the sign of their wealth.
The house is divided into different rooms,
compartments separated by walls of woven bamboo.
Another source of protein is fish, which they catch in the many rivers in the region.
Without a doubt, the rough Highland terrain,
and the extremely warlike nature of these tribes, always in conflict with their neighbours,
have contributed to the great ethnic variety we still find today.
Each group decorates their bodies in different ways
specific, characteristic colours and designs.
They paint themselves for many different ceremonies,
but perhaps the most typical is the sing-sing,
a ceremony at which they dance and sing.
Sing–sings are organised to celebrate many different things,
though some take place on specific days each year,
and for these many different tribes come together,
arriving from even the most remote villages.
Using the same colours, each one paints his face with his own design,
almost always inherited from his ancestors,
as are their headdresses, made from bird of paradise feathers.
The bird of paradise is now a protected species,
and can only be hunted with bow and arrow before the sing-sing.
From the time the Spanish sailors took the feathers back to Europe,
in the sixteenth century, trade in these feathers was indiscriminate.
All over the world, they were greatly prized as decoration in theatre shows.
The highlander peoples are proud and maintain their customs and traditions.
Despite the daily impact of western influence,
they never miss an opportunity to show off their feathers.