"THE ASARO MUDMEN"

The Asaro Mudmen are the tribal community of Papua New Genea. Basically they live nearby the the village Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Genea. They are also know as Holosa. 

They are famous for their unusual traditional costume and specially masks they wear. Those masks have very unusually shapes, sizes and designs. Some are long, some are short. Some end at the chin and some have long extensions beyond the chin. Some have giantic looks, some have horns, some have long ears with mouth at any sideway with bamboo fingers. 

There are many types of tenets regarding the tradition of wearing these unusual masks.

Some says that once the enemy tribe defeated the Asaro tribe and made them to flee from there village. While escaping they met a man who gave the the eyes to kill there enemies. So they hid around making a plan. But before escaping, the person whom those eyes were given, was captured by the enemies. So he came out of the Asaro river but while coming he was covered with mud. The enemy thought him as a spirit and got afraid of him. They left the place and started many ceremonies to get rid of the spirit. This gave an self defense idea to the Asaro tribe.

They believed the mud of Asaro river as poisonous. So instead of covering themselves with the mud, they made these masks with mud and pebbles and wore them. Thus by terrifying there enemies they rescued there village . Since then they use to wear these masks as a mean of self defense and appear as monsters to rest of the world. One other version says once they accepted these masks as a special wedding costume. 

There are about 30000 Asaro Mudmen on both side of Asaro river. They uses the regional language Dano, a part of Kainatu - Goroka language. They use earth oven consist of hot coal or stones and make food for a lengthy time. They eat Wet Mumu or Dry Mumu and sometimes traditional pizzas. They cook mumus by sweet corn, sweet potato, green leaves, chicken or pigs . 

They hold and control the access to the fertile Markham and Ramu valley and several gold funds there. 

Some of them follow Protestant Christianity and some believe that the superpower exists in the rainforest, rivers or caves.

The Asaro Mudmen glorifies the ancestral story of the Eastern highland province .