Hidden Valley
pp. 30-31 · Read in the full issue
Letter to the Editor: Jack Hides and the
(See also article on page 79.)
A REFERENCE in October PIM to a flight I made, with others, into the Lavani ,(“Shangri-la”) Valley west of Tari, Papua, is fol lowed by this statement; “Meanwhile, in Sydney, Mrs.
Jean Crofts, sister of the late Jack Hides, of Papua, refutes published reports that APC geologist, John Zehnder was the first (white) man to enter the valley. Mrs. Crofts claims that Hides and O’Malley visited the valley as part of the Tari-Strickland patrol in 1935.
She says that she has pictures and maps to prove it and that Hides described these natives, their dress and mode of living in his book, Papuan Wonderland.”
It is so easy, by the making of statements and the reporting of them to do people injustices, as well as deny them due credit, in matters of who-was-there-first in Papua- New Guinea.
The Hides-O’Malley patrol of 1935 did discover what I would call the Tari-type (Huri, or Huh, tribes) people, the people who wear hair wigs, decorated with purple and yellow flowers. Of that there is no question, and I was careful to men tion it in articles I wrote recently about the area.
I have at my elbow, as I write, a copy of Jack Hides’ patrol report and a map showing his route, which passed south of Tari, and south of the route taken by the patrol from which Mr. Zehnder made a side trip. (The escort patrol led by Mr.
D. J. Clancy, ADO, followed closely on the route taken by the Hagen- Sepik patrol of Mr. J. L. Taylor in 1938-39 ) If Mrs. Crofts can prove to my satisfaction or the satisfaction of any competent authority in District Services that her brother entered the Lavani valley I shall donate £lOO to any charity she cares to name.
The fact that Hides, who passed through so much new country, did not happen to go into this particular valley, in no way detracts from the measure of credit due to him and to O’Malley.
What people never quite seem to understand is that the most a patrol can do is cut a corridor. In that country patrols taking routes 20 miles apart will cut quite dif ferent sectors of population, which may or may not be people of the same type. Both Ivan and Claude Champion did most valuable patrols into this same wide region.
The irony of it is that Jack Hides himself suffered from ill-informed statements that the country he found had previously been pene
trated by Michael and Daniel Leahy in 1933—a statement which the Leahy brothers would be the first to deny.
Even my own trips into New Guinea—which I have never sug gested amounted to exploration have drawn the most curious “re futations.” One correspondent, who got himself published in the ABC Weekly, claimed that I said in a broadcast that a patrol I accom plished discovered the wigmen of Wabag. This was in 1949, years after the Gpvernment station had been established there. He said these people had been discovered by Hides, “whom he had once been privileged to meet.” In fact, the Wabag-area wigmen were first visited by Mick and Dan Leahy in 1934, when Jim Taylor was not with them. The next Europeans into the area were the Fox brothers.
I am, etc.,
Colin Simpson.
East Gordon, NSW, October 27, 1954.
ff Miss Norah Harris, daughter of Mr. Tom Harris, of Santo, New Hebrides, has announced her en gagement to Mr. Arnold. They will marry in the New Year.