PARTING COMMENTS

I feel a bit like Edward Curtis, the photographer who chronicled the American Indians in the 19th Century, trying to capture their cultures before they were gone. The Papua New Guinea tribes were not even discovered until the 1950's, and they had lived for hundreds of years isolated from the rest of the world. The influences of Western "civilization" on these cultures has stopped the payback intertribal warfare, collection of skulls & cannibalism - for the most part - but has brought with it poverty, drug addiction, crime and a destruction of their proud traditions. It is my hope that we, the Western World, don't rob these people of their natural resources and cultural heritage.