“It was early 2012 and I was doing a series of dives in submersibles all over the world. My expedition fellow Andrew Wight said, ‘Have you ever been to Papua New Guinea? There’s [the New Britain Trench] there, and it’s five miles deep.’ We decided to do our trial dives there, with our equipment coming through the city of Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. I heard that the Indigenous Baining people were in the mountains, and a local guide negotiated with the elders to let us go up there and film their fire ceremony [for my expedition documentary Deepsea Challenge]. We got as far as we could by four-wheel drive, then there was maybe an hour of hiking up a very muddy trail. It was a tough slog, and we hiked it twice in order to bring up some of our 3D camera equipment.
It was a little village with thatch roofs and a clearing in the center, surrounded by rainforest. Wood smoke moved softly through. Everybody was getting ready. Down on the edge of the forest, the young men were preparing masks made from bark cloth—very light material, almost like deerskin—on frames. These masks were five, six feet tall. I brought them cigarettes, which they appreciated. I don’t smoke, but I figured I’d better light up, and we kind of hung out; they didn’t speak English, and I don’t have any Papuan languages. A bunch of the older men sat in a square and drummed all night—they didn’t stop. The women spectated, and these tiny kids carried giant bundles of wood that were bigger than they were and made an enormous bonfire. Right after dark, when the only light came from the fire and the moon, these guys danced the masks out of the forest; they looked vaguely humanoid but also animal. They went in and out of the woods, they let the fire burn to a big pile of embers, and then they ran through and kicked it so it would explode 20, 30 feet in the air. They went until dawn, and I stayed as long as I could, until two in the morning. Their dance actually inspired a scene in Avatar: Fire and Ash. It was spectacular, honestly, the most amazing thing I had ever seen.”
