Ethnographic Presents: Pioneering Anthropologists in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

Until the middle of this century, the Western world knew little about the peoples of the Central Highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea, and vice versa. Only in 1930 was the curtain abruptly lifted on those valleys and mountain ridges, with their tens of thousands of inhabitants whose mineral resources, service as laborers, fealty as colonial subjects, and souls became objects of intense interest on the part of gold prospectors, Australian administrative officers, and missionaries. For t...