:something about alice
and in a strictly male dominated society she made a bold move inventing a 'womens tour' in her village. Alice tells us the messenger woman carrying the knife and umbrella is a role usually resigned for middle-aged woman; their average age of life expectancy is 60-70 years old. Sent by her village to the market, her task along with another female, whose face is painted in war stripes, is to signal their village's grievance, most likely over land or women, with another. Because of its seriousness they are to abstain from sex and visit the market every day until compensation is paid in either pigs or kina, (local currency). And if it is not, tribal war will likely ensue; police intervention is rare leaving clans to sort out their own issues, often in merciless ways. Abstinence is not unusual in Tari, until recently men and women ate, cooked and slept in different huts, only sharing their bed mats for baby making. Traditionally children grow up with their mothers and at the age of 10 boys move across to their father's quarters; Alice thinks today about 60 per cent of couples in Tari share matrimonial homes. Ahead on the pitted mud track, a woman wearing a grass skirt and a woven beanie, her face faintly tattooed in line and zigzag patterns, carries a bilum bag, Papua New Guinea's answer to an all-purpose carry bag. Being hands free, it's two loose ends tie together in a knot so as to rest on top of her head, its weight falling down her back. Inside the bag on a banana leaf mattress, a chubby baby objects as his mother sponges him down with moist moss like a baby
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