CANNIBAL KINGS OF NEW GUINEA

[Music] living in a modern civilized environment it's difficult for us to imagine that cannibal tribes still exist but they do and they continue today their strange frightening tribal customs we're going on this episode to the last stronghold of bow and arrow toting savages on the world's largest tropical islands we'll travel through rugged dense jungle with savages watching our every move we're going on a 300 mile safari with a patrol officer and a cameraman the people we'll see hear film for the first time are still living in a stone age you'll be amazed startled by what you see on this true adventure among the cannibal kings of new guinea yes it's hard to believe but what you'll see on this program is all true these people still exist hundreds of them on an island half again the size of our own state of texas communication with him is so difficult that few if any of our ideas have penetrated these people indulge in practices completely beyond our imagination they devour their own dead but death to such a primitive race is more accepted and life is of much less value yet they know some form of affection as you'll see on this amazing true adventure [Music] true adventure this is the place to find it new guinea dominating the coral sea to the north of australia is the largest tropical island in the whole wide world just imagine it's bigger than texas three times larger than the british isles size isn't the only challenge it offers the terrain of new guinea is incredibly difficult vast steaming tracks of jungle surrounded and intersected with barriers formed by ranges of ten thousand foot mountain peaks it's been a land that time forgot choking and lush vegetation swarming with bizarre forms of animal life [Music] but even more spectacular than the island of new guinea itself is the way of life that it's sheltered because here ladies and gentlemen in the midst of the 20th century is a remnant of the stone age it's only in the last 50 years or so that civilization has even achieved contact with the people of the new guinea highlands that was just the beginning the glimpses the early explorers had of them was only enough to tell us what a tremendous job it would be to win them over from the savage barbarism of their ancient ways and savage it is because many of the people of new guinea are cannibals and so you say well what kind of of a man what kind of a white man would tackle the job of coming in and working with these people well of course he has to be a bit of an adventurer to risk living among the head hunters the cannibals but that isn't all leonard barnard shown here getting ready for a six-week patrol into the highlands would be the first to scoff if you called him a hero but the truth is that only a man with courage in his veins would do this [Music] oh not one of the the swashbuckling movie types the kind that's fonder of headlines than headhunters len barnard is a rare breed of man the sword whose heroism consists of plugging away day by day at a big goal that he knows is worthwhile he calls himself only a medical missionary but every day every single day of his working life earns him the right to be called a true adventurer this spidery swing bridge is just a mild sample of the risks on the trail and his land rover built for rough country is no good to him after the first day's run the road ends here everything has to be unloaded and re-packed into bundles that one man can handle now we begin another phase of len's trek we're going to share with him a friendly tribe furnishes 40 porters and the next dawn sees the party started on the big walkabout that's an australian term meaning long trek they'll cover 300 miles in the coming weeks winding through the valley of the tua river and across the misted mountain ranges [Music] now the trails they follow are centuries old pounded smooth by the tread of countless bare feet [Music] but that doesn't guarantee safe passage just the opposite these lonely routes are the first target in time of intertribal war you could never be sure that the hush of the rain forest won't suddenly be broken by the whistle of arrows and the cries of hostile warriors new guinea land of the cannibal kings and the brutal code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth prevails here each village tucked in some easily defended spot is an actual or potential enemy of every other nearby village violence erupts easily among members of the same tribe now lin's treating a woman there this is the husband of the woman that len barnett is treating and it seems an argument between them and in an axe blow len is able to catch the wound early before the sweltering tropic climate has given infection a head start he has by the way and i'm not laughing because it's not very funny but he has a lively audience of bystanders and their reactions tell us how casual such violence is actually the woman got off lightly prompt care will heal her and i assume that she's going to get along with her husband after this that alone is a big step forward from the old days now this woman has an extra joint to serve as a lifelong reminder of an arm fractured in some long forgotten family brawl you see it was never said but amazingly she still seems to get some use from the arm she had to because if she were helpless it would have only given her husband an excuse to brainer you see the old and the young both suffer from disease in this area now this young lad suffering from leprosy you can't look forward to much of a future as skin shows light patches the first telltale signs of leprosy i said len barnard was a hero but the physical needs of the natives are only a part of his work by means of a picture roll of biblical teachings he also does what he can for the equally desperate spiritual needs he's one of the more than a hundred missionaries maintained in this area by the seventh-day adventist church australia has actual charge of the administration of eastern new guinea as a trusteeship granted by the united nations and it's made bold strides in improving native welfare but the day-by-day job is so enormous that volunteer assistance such as the adventists have offered is still heartily welcomed leonard barnard with 20 years of experience in this region is qualified to function as the eyes and the ears of the australian departments of health and education every patrol then makes adds to their vital storm information on the problems here and helps them deal directly with them [Music] here's an example pitifully disfigured victims of yaws have new hope with modern medicine a vicious disease rampant in the tropics as long as anyone can remember can be brought under control with a single injection of penicillin on this patrol len and his assistant gave 12 000 shots of it gradually there's hope of dealing with countless similar tropic skin diseases all but the human interest of seeing these pictures photographed among the cannibals of new guinea it's unbelievable the humid air of course is favorable to contagion that really is the deadliest enemy that len has but even familiar scourges as malaria can be met and beaten the treatment mingles elements of past and present says the natives wash down modern drugs with water from bottles made of bamboo tubing perhaps in future years there'll be fewer young women who will have to wear the white beads that are the mark of widow hood and perhaps the violence and mistrust that adds so much to the natives woes can be supplanted by len's spiritual teachings now it isn't easy he's dealing with a people who don't even have a word in their language to cover the christian concept of love this in the atomic age but perhaps the adventists patience and hard work can bridge the gap for them [Music] the big walkabout the trek through new guinea cannibal country continues other villages are waiting down they must go into the valley and then painfully up and across the next ridge the terrain restricts their pace to a few miles a day man like len must have to have a lot of spiritual and moral courage to go through this year in and year out lynn barnard has a dream that the day will come when some airstrips will be carved into this wilderness one of his duties is to survey possible sites for them of course there'll still be plenty of hiking to reach surrounding villages but he could avoid the time-consuming misery slogging through bleach infested swamps [Music] that's still a dream though len knows that today's needs have to be met by any means at his disposal high hopes plenty of hard work that's a formula that he has to follow in the heart of new guinea with stone age men faced with constant danger crossing a stream is a mild prelude to the dangers that he faces now because we've entered the domain of the kalamu tribesmen a group that's known to still practice cannibalism they live in odd two-story huts men on one floor women on the other tree dwellers that's what the other natives call them they dread meeting this strange tribe now the kalamus have apparently accepted len barnard's help his medical help but even he can't be sure of their hospitality they're proud fickle and they're violent that's a general estimate of their character as a matter of fact patrol officers have been massacred in this region only a few years ago and the new guinea bush natives have a deadly quirk of turning on men who have worked long and hard at being their friends like len so len can only do his best and hope those spears will never be turned against him he has to look into these strange faces see whether there is friendliness or hatred there [Music] [Music] the work goes on among stone age people and there just aren't enough hours in the day it seems even slight wounds are likely to fester in this climate it's a terrible climate it's more than one man can do to keep pace with all of the problems of injury and disease that native life involves and of course there's the even bigger task of combating the spiritual sickness of their ancient ways terribly gruesome things ghastly customs like this widow wearing the mummified foot of her husband these are typical of the bizarre ancestor worship is the heart of this tribe's tradition a cult of sorcerer priests does its utmost to preserve and pass on the tradition the nauseous ritual includes such terrifying things as eating their own dead the bones are kept once they've dried on these outdoor racks they'll be displayed in various places of honor around the village but the flesh is eaten at a great communal feast in the hope that the traits of the departed one will be passed on to those who eat the flesh well it's if you'll forgive me a relief to drop that topic and discuss a native ritual that is a little less gruesome but i would remind you that you're watching true adventure filmed as it happens in new guinea we're looking now at the sing-sing it's a ceremonial dance accompanied by a chanting it's hypnotic colorful spectacle it's found in various forms among the new guinea tribes shows they have a at least some semblance of dance let's watch and listen [Laughter] australia and men like len barnett have a real riddle to face trying to wipe out every trace of barbarism and still not destroy the unique traces of true native culture it's a hardshore but the cannibal customs are rapidly being suppressed eric were who photographed this for us said it wouldn't be too many years before grim relics like the bone racks would utterly disappear if the success of australia's policy continued we have seen enough by now to form an idea of the tremendous scope of new guinea's problems everyone agrees that self-government is the eventual goal but it's a long way off for a people whose only agricultural tool is a pointed stick i don't think i've ever seen mortally concerned with the progress of even learning how to read and write you can spend weeks in one of these highland villages and not see a single sign of the outside world except for the steel knives and axes which are rapidly replacing the natives hewn stone blades the huts are built without the use of any materials other than those the jungle furnishes logs bound together with fiber covered with pandanus frogs they're weather tight for a few months and then others will be built to replace them maybe that would be an advantage at that [Music] it's going on for centuries the tribesmen certainly won't learn new ways easily now watching this native life unfold i thought it would be nice to show you a happy ceremony we've seen some unhappy things let's take marriage marriage is a matter of barter here in new guinea the women smile knowingly they know the shock the girl faces when she discovers her carefree life is over and she has to settle down to the unending drudgery that is the fate of every native wife and i would assume every wife anywhere in the world now this is a bargaining session was photographed as it occurred so many pigs and so many axes the transaction will soon be complete and another happy couple will add their strength to the community you see they're in the middle of the haggling now [Music] everything that you see underscores the the changeless quality of life here but i think was all summed up for our party when the chief agreed to furnish fresh supplies for the quarters every detail was a rich reminder of the past the chief's weird cry echoing down from the ridge the procession of women bears guarded by armed warriors began to filter in along the jungle trails just fantastic to see this unfold before our cameras it was all a ritual that had been repeated countless times right down to the moment when the sacks were unloaded and payment offered oh not money no that wouldn't be any use to anybody here the medium of exchange salt just as it was in biblical and roman times we said at the beginning that new guinea was a land that time forgot but you never quite recover from the shock of the countless reminders of that fact [Music] but len or anyone else who gets to know new guinea can't escape its problems for long the feasts and celebrations are only a brief break in the grim routine of native life you're constantly reminded of their warlike and barbaric past the vast and insistent problems of their present and their future they live in squalor they're the victims of the numberless hazards that squalor creates a rumor about len's presence was enough to bring this man miles in a stretcher over a craggy highland trail and then it was too late to do anything but pronounce a death sentence on it pneumonia jaundice complications that barnard's simple dispensary just can't deal with it's always been this way in new guinea the thing that spurs on men like len barnard and the australian administrators is that modern science has finally put it in our power to cure these ageless abuses even the native chiefs seem to sense this new hope they're impatient to see it fulfilled there are plenty of problems the self-destructive habits like beetle nut chewing must be abolished by education the inescapable health hazards like arthritis will remain on a big scale there are diseases like leprosy that have social as well as medical aspects the campaign against cannibalism must be pushed to success and the staggering mortality rate among children must be curbed trusteeship is a big word when you know it includes all that but you just can't look into the faces of the youngsters without knowing it's worth all the effort and you think how lucky we are to have men like leonard barnard who are willing to devote their lives to a true adventure of the human spirit on new guinea's cannibal island [Music] you