The Lost Tribe: A Search Through the Jungles of Papua New Guinea - Hardcover

Marriott, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330336193 ISBN 13: 9780330336192

Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Pubns, 1996

Synopsis

Two years before this story begins, the Liawep were a lost tribe. There were seventy-nine of them, living in deep jungle in far northwest Papua New Guinea. They worshipped a mountain and dressed in leaves. They hid when planes flew overhead, believing them to be evil sanguma birds. There was no record of them in census books; as far as the outside world was concerned they did not exist.
Edward Marriott first heard about the Liawep tribe in 1993, when their 'discovery' by a missionary hit the international headlines. Unable to believe that anyone could still be truly lost, he set out to find them himself, to hear their stories, hopes for the future and fears for their changing world. Banned by the Papua New Guinea government from visiting them, he assembled his own patrol and crossed the jungle illegally. However, nothing could prepare him for what he found nor for the dramatic events that followed.
Intriguing and impressive, The Lost Tribe is both a compelling adventure story and an extraordinary account of a small society caught at a time of dramatic change.

About this title

About the Author

Edward Marriott, a journalist and broadcaster, is the author of Savage Shore: Life and Death with Nicaragua's Last Shark Hunters. The Lost Tribe, his first book of travel writing, was a finalist for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and a New York Times Best Travel Book of 1997.

From Kirkus Reviews

In an account redolent of early colonial adventure epics, reeking of tangible fear and foreboding, a Briton ventures into the jungle of Papua New Guinea; armed with naive curiosity, he encounters more trouble than he could have imagined. Until 1993, when a young tribesman emerged from the jungle seeking medical help, the Liawep were virtually unknown to any but unfortunate neighboring tribes who felt the brunt of their savagery. A year later, the author, circumventing official restrictions, slithers through remote rainforests, traversing swollen rivers over rickety bridges built of vines and logs. It's an arduous trek for which he finds himself physically unprepared but which he undertakes in order to be among the first to encounter this ``lost tribe.'' Accompanied by native guides, Marriott eventually reaches the Liawep's village. At first, he receives a chilly reception from the only other outsider, a raging Christian missionary named Herod, and is generally avoided by the suspicious Liawep. But over a period of weeks, he penetrates this society to a minimal extent, and what he finds is atavistically scary. He meets an older warrior who admits to cannibalism, and the tribesmen affirm that their fearful reputation is well-earned: Prior to contact with the outside, they killed off the surrounding peoples, and they are often overtly threatening to Marriott. Even the butchering of pigs is performed with gruesome savagery, a process described in chilling, graphic detail. With the advent of the rainy season, Marriott and his companions worry about crossing the rivers on their return journey. Before they can start out, a fearsome lightning storm inundates the village, bringing death to five of the Liawep. Fearing that they will be blamed for the tragedy by the superstitious warriors--a fear soon borne out--Marriott and his guides barely escape with their lives after a forced jungle march. Honest and without self-aggrandizement, and even witty in the early going, Marriott's debut is one of the best books of its kind in recent memory. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Pubns
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0330336193
• ISBN 13: 9780330336192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 275