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The Huli consist of over 65,000 different people grouped into clans or tribes. They live in the central mountains of Papua New Guinea. They have various unique rituals, varying fron status among their tribes to determining the best of the best for the men. Men and women live serperate from one another, living in large group houses.
One of their most important customs is to display the wealth of each tribe. Tribal art consists of their extravagent headdresses and their beautiful weapons, as well as jewerly, baskets, and other such things. Some of their artifacts include a stone axe called an Aju and a hardwood digging stick, called a Keba. Women are known as a danger to men in the Huli tribes. They are seen as being a baleful influence on men and have been known to occasionly use their powers on men to cause harm. The men then must use ritualistic strategies to guard against the women. The tribe is male-dominated. A man is free to take as many wives as he wants, but a woman is only allowed one husband at a time. A marriage is either decided between the couple or a man's bride can be arranged by kin. After this is settled, the man makes a payment to the woman's family. The payment is usually pigs, ranging between fifteen to thirty. The man then decides the woman's place of residence and has a duty to provide her a house and land to work a garden. After a child is born, the woman either keeps it with her to raise if it is female or if it is male, he will be sent to live with his father when he reaches the age of 9 or 10. Divorce among a couple is quite often, especially if the woman cannot bare children. It is known to them that a marriage can only be a true marriage if children are present. In the Huli society, there are no chiefs and no government of any kind. Power and special importance can be gained by any man with the right ambition. If the man proves his worth, others will tend to follow his lead. A woman may own pigs and valuables and may eat the food that she had grown, but she can never obtain the wealth that a man has.
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The copyright of the article The Huli Tribe in Deforestation is owned by Jeanette Nelson. Permission to republish The Huli Tribe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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