The face Of Primitive

travel

The face Of Primitive new guinea

A Regular Piaa Department

Reporting News Of South

Seas Tourism And Travel

From The Inside

PRIMITIVE man lives in the big territory of Papua- A New Guinea. He lives in valleys in the Highlands, on the Sepik plains, in the mountains of the lower central ranges and along the meandering river country of the vast Papuan Gulf. He trades in shells and pigs. He often has many wives, and life sometimes is cheap. He lives virtually side by side with civilised man, but he doesn’t know it. If there is a Government post nearby, and perhaps an airstrip, he might suspect there is a wider world over the ranges, but as to its extent he has no conception. One day he will know. The day is coming

quickly, as the primitive areas of New Guinea shrink month after month. In the meantime, travellers to New Guinea can see primitive man, and his wife, with their flower-bedecked wigs of human hair (if they live in the Southern Highlands), pig tusks through their noses, day on their faces, shells around their necks and tanget leaves on

their rumps. Occasionally they

might even see the badge of the luluai, the Government man, on a primitive forehead. Or a warrior demonstrate his marks manship with bow and arrow.

New Guinea can be reached by air through Fiji or Australia, and the experience is worthwhile.

But plan to go soon.

The pictures on these pages were taken by Deputy District Commissioner Jim Sinclair, an experienced native affairs man, who is no stranger to the primitive face of New Guinea.