First Contact: New Guinea's Highlanders Encounter the Outside World

by Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson

The story of the extraordinary 1930 encounter between a team of gold prospectors and a pre-technological civilization ignorant of the outside world, as remembered and photographed by those whose lives it changed.

Genres: History, Anthropology, Nonfiction

317 pages, Hardcover

First published August 3, 1987

Reviews

[Ron Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mother was a Tsimshian Indian from Hartley Bay, British Columbia. She was born in 1918, so 50 years or so after the times when the region was still almost fully traditional. It’s always been curious to me that the First Nations gave in so completely to the Christian missionaries of this era, cutting down their totem poles and rejecting (though sometimes just hiding) their winter ceremonies. So, this book was interesting for me. It’s about the first contact between Westerners (in this case, Australian gold miners) and the highland tribes of New Guinea in the 1930s. It was written by two writers and filmmakers who visited New Guinea in the 1980s. It’s illustrated with hundred of photos, mainly taken by Michael Leahy, one of the gold miners. The authors interviewed both the Australians and the tribal people who were still alive and recorded their memories of first contact and the following fifty years. There is little writing that is comparable in British Columbia since nearly all our histories were written by or based on accounts of White settlers, missionaries, or filtered through European anthropologists. The Australian and Canadian traditional cultures had similarities, both being based on small, isolated communities that spoke many different languages and with cultures strongly based on prestige and social hierarchy established through giving away wealth. So this book gave me a lot to think about and some good insights into the mental processes of the natives as they dealt with these powerful and mysterious new strangers to their land.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of early encounters in the PNG highlands. As someone who taught in Enga in late 1970s ( who would have welcomed this background information if it had been available) I found the portrayal of the differing points of view of the tribal groups and the missionaries, mercenaries and misfits as conflicting ethical issues arose , totally credible. The multiple language and culture mix inevitably lead to misconceptions and tensions sometimes disastrously.

It is rare to have such a balanced story of a colonial experience.
This is an outstanding commentary and a must read for anyone living in, or interested in, or working in developing countries in any capacity.

[Vince · Rating 5 out of 5]

The year is 1932 at the start. Michael Leahy arrives in New Guinea prospecting for gold in the great rush covering the island. Leahy is escaping an unpromising life in Queensland, Australia. He’s not only ambitious but given to photography. He headed into the highlands while other prospectors – and big mining companies worked the coasts. Expecting uninhabited land, Leahy found people covering every valley, people eventually found to speak 700 languages. He met them on their own terms initially, confidently approaching them all. Eventually, though, he used his firearms to bring people to accept his intrusions that started peaceably, mixing with those arms his social skills and the lure of wealth – sea shells, iron tools, and more. He documented in photos and diaries the transformations he unleashed. The authors traced the intermingling of the lives his brother Dan, Australian district officer James Taylor… and hundreds of the indigenous people who were variously friends, enemies, onlookers, gold mine workers, “gunbois,” “bosbois,” bearers of several of his and Dan’s children, and builders of a new society. The authors went to Papua New Guinea, as it is now known, to get their stories 50 years later. They are very changed people. It’s not a Hollywood movie finish, but it is a fascinating one.

[Paul Bedwell]

I found this a very interesting book. The author describes how it came about that thousands of people were able to live remotely in the highlands of New Guinea without contact with modern culture. The geography of the island is such that large fertile plains are ' hidden ' behind mountain ranges and sailors in ships passing the islands can only see those mountains and consequently nobody thought what was behind them. Also the high risk of Malaria on the coastal fringes of the islands made it an unpopular settlement for the few outsiders who had landed on its shores.
It seems nobody ( apart from a few missionaries) had explored the inland areas. The missionaries wanted to keep it a secret in fear of the islands exploitation.
The book is about a handful of Australian prospectors who decided to go inland in search of gold. One of the party was proficient with a camera and at a time when photography was in its infancy recorded a catalogue of historic pictures of people and places largely forgotten by time.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm intrigued by New Guinea, since I learned in college how many languages this small space had. Then when I researched Australia, it came up again. Completely enthralled to read the story of how the highlanders were first exposed to current society norms. Imagine a culture, in 1933, with no usage of metals. No electricity. No reading or writing. Truly amazing.

[august Shank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but dense

[Gail Pool · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most Americans, the story told in First Contact will be new. Apart from anthropological works, few books have been written about New Guinea, a country we hear little about. Indeed, although I lived in New Britain—a part of Papua New Guinea—I was unaware of the fascinating history of the first white exploration of the Highlands recounted here.

The story begins in the 1930s, when an Australian adventurer, Michael Leahy, and his brothers set out to find gold in New Guinea. At that time, New Guinea was a League of Nations mandate administered by the Australians, who believed that the interior of the island was uninhabited. As the Leahy brothers discovered, this was hardly the case. Making their way through the dense bush, they found a region populated by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants who had lived in such isolation from the outside world that they had never seen a white person before.

Writing fifty years later, Bob Connolloy and Robin Anderson recreate the dramatic, sometimes brutal confrontation between these two groups. Drawing not only on Michael Leahy’s journals and his extensive photographic record, they also interviewed many of the New Guineans who experienced this first invasion of their territory. Their initial response was a mix of confusion, surprise, and terror: Were these white people their ancestors returning? Were they spirits? And what on earth were these flying machines? As these Highlanders, now elderly, describe it, the shock of the strangers was so strong that the memories have stayed vivid even after fifty years.

The authors are evenhanded in their treatment of this material, describing the Highlanders’ culture with respect and enabling us to understand rather than simply condemn the colonialist intruders, though they by no means hide their arrogance and bigotry or the fact that they and their carriers killed at least forty-one New Guineans. As Connolly and Anderson observe, at least the colonial experience in New Guinea was short-lived: the country became independent in 1975. Nor was that experience as ugly as it was in other colonized lands. But as the interviews and amazing photographs make clear, in this deeply disruptive encounter and the contact that followed, a world was shattered and ultimately lost.

[Cameo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book! It is a book that describes the experience, from both perspectives, of first contact between Papua New Guinea's highland people and white, Australian gold prospectors. I think I especially loved it because I live in PNG and have been to Mt. Hagen, drove past Dan Leahy's coffee plantation, and seen some of the lands talked about in this book. It also just fascinates me to think about what the experience was like for the native people to see white people for the first time, and to see their technology that was so far advanced from their own. I can only imagine the immense struggles they had in understanding these new "pale" beings! It sure shows an ugly side, though, to the superiority complex the white men had. I think the book is well written and easy to read, and would be interesting to just about anybody.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting Premise, not interestingly enough written.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps my favorite fact from this book is that the native New Guineans thought the white people were spirits until they found their latrine.

[Glenn Bowlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting account of the Australian/Western exploration of the Papua New Guinea highlands. Though rich with amazing historical photographs, this is not an ethnography. In style, it is more of a travel book or adventure tale. Nevertheless, each chapter is fascinating.