The story
Mount Hagen Cultural Show in Mount Hagen
The Mount Hagen Cultural Show, held each August in the Western Highlands capital, is one of Papua New Guinea's largest sing-sing gatherings. Tribal groups from across the highlands converge on the city, set in the fertile Wahgi Valley, to perform dance and decoration competitions that rank among the country's most photographed cultural events.
The Wahgi Valley, where Mount Hagen now stands as Papua New Guinea's third largest city, has supported dense highland populations for thousands of years, a fact underscored by nearby Kuk Swamp, where archaeological evidence shows independently developed agricultural drainage systems dating back roughly seven to ten thousand years, among the oldest such evidence found anywhere in the world.