What do you think?
Rate this book
The High Valley
An anthropological study from two years of field work, conducted among the Gahuku of New Guinea.
349 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
3 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2024
A shy man among the Gahuku
Having spent a couple of years in the New Guinea back blocks during WWII, not fighting but getting to know the newly-contacted peoples, Kenneth Read returned to Australia, did a higher degree and returned to the New Guinea highlands to do anthropological research. That was in 1950-51. The place he chose was just west of what is now the fairly large town of Goroka, but was just an outpost of white governance then.
Read had to get a small house built at the edge of a village of the Gahuku people, one of the many small groups in forbidding terrain that make Papua New Guinea the place in the world with the most languages (840) in its population (9 million today, but far less back then). He then proceeded to carry out a study of the people, but this book is not it. “The High Valley” is rather a book from his heart, a book of his impressions and experiences as he did his anthropological study. He lived alone there with a few male servants in a society that had no servants. He says that the Gahuku were very materialistic, not given to admiring nature or philosophizing. Introspection was not a Gahuku specialty. Yes, he was certainly alone, a man from a world that no Gahuku could comprehend. But, it seemed to me that he was quite unfit to be doing that work, though people say that the ultimate results were good. Read turns out to be sensitive and shy, forcing himself to communicate, finding things dirty, crowded and difficult. He was a reticent man from a well-off family in rural Australia. Nevertheless he became at least somewhat friendly with a few of his neighbors.
As you read, you feel that he must have been gay and if you look into his bio, you will find that he was. No doubt, in that more repressed time, this was another bridge he had to cross. Though he does write of Gahuku culture and life, the strong points of the book emerge through his descriptions of the land and its “poetry”, the splendor of the ceremonies, and his agonizing over having to work with the lack of privacy (he was like an alien landed on another planet—not connected to occasional visiting Australian officials—local people were just curious.) The Gahuku men tended to be very macho; his moods and motivations could not have been more different. He comments three pages before the end, after you have reached similar conclusions yourself:
“On the face of it, my personal characteristics were a questionable recommendation for the kind of field work in which I had been engaged, work that seemed to ask for a considerable degree of self-reliance, to call for a more active person, for more practical skills and interests than I possessed, for a facility in establishing personal contacts quite beyond my usual ability.”
He continues with such candid personal observations that you reach a sympathetic understanding of a man who persisted until he had to be evacuated for medical reasons. As you read, you will find many interludes in which he emphasized the special light of the New Guinea highlands, the air, the clouds moving above and around the mountains, the colors, the waving trees on the ridges, and paths through the tall grass. You feel that the land assuaged his distress at having to live in what, for him, was a most uncomfortable situation.
I found it interesting to compare his thoughts with those of Malinowski, who also did research in New Guinea during WW I, when as an Austro-Hungarian subject, he was allowed to live there in lieu of spending some years in a P.O.W. camp in Australia. At any rate, “The High Valley” is an unusual book of anthropology, a book in which the anthropologist reveals himself as well as the studied people.
Having spent a couple of years in the New Guinea back blocks during WWII, not fighting but getting to know the newly-contacted peoples, Kenneth Read returned to Australia, did a higher degree and returned to the New Guinea highlands to do anthropological research. That was in 1950-51. The place he chose was just west of what is now the fairly large town of Goroka, but was just an outpost of white governance then.
Read had to get a small house built at the edge of a village of the Gahuku people, one of the many small groups in forbidding terrain that make Papua New Guinea the place in the world with the most languages (840) in its population (9 million today, but far less back then). He then proceeded to carry out a study of the people, but this book is not it. “The High Valley” is rather a book from his heart, a book of his impressions and experiences as he did his anthropological study. He lived alone there with a few male servants in a society that had no servants. He says that the Gahuku were very materialistic, not given to admiring nature or philosophizing. Introspection was not a Gahuku specialty. Yes, he was certainly alone, a man from a world that no Gahuku could comprehend. But, it seemed to me that he was quite unfit to be doing that work, though people say that the ultimate results were good. Read turns out to be sensitive and shy, forcing himself to communicate, finding things dirty, crowded and difficult. He was a reticent man from a well-off family in rural Australia. Nevertheless he became at least somewhat friendly with a few of his neighbors.
As you read, you feel that he must have been gay and if you look into his bio, you will find that he was. No doubt, in that more repressed time, this was another bridge he had to cross. Though he does write of Gahuku culture and life, the strong points of the book emerge through his descriptions of the land and its “poetry”, the splendor of the ceremonies, and his agonizing over having to work with the lack of privacy (he was like an alien landed on another planet—not connected to occasional visiting Australian officials—local people were just curious.) The Gahuku men tended to be very macho; his moods and motivations could not have been more different. He comments three pages before the end, after you have reached similar conclusions yourself:
“On the face of it, my personal characteristics were a questionable recommendation for the kind of field work in which I had been engaged, work that seemed to ask for a considerable degree of self-reliance, to call for a more active person, for more practical skills and interests than I possessed, for a facility in establishing personal contacts quite beyond my usual ability.”
He continues with such candid personal observations that you reach a sympathetic understanding of a man who persisted until he had to be evacuated for medical reasons. As you read, you will find many interludes in which he emphasized the special light of the New Guinea highlands, the air, the clouds moving above and around the mountains, the colors, the waving trees on the ridges, and paths through the tall grass. You feel that the land assuaged his distress at having to live in what, for him, was a most uncomfortable situation.
I found it interesting to compare his thoughts with those of Malinowski, who also did research in New Guinea during WW I, when as an Austro-Hungarian subject, he was allowed to live there in lieu of spending some years in a P.O.W. camp in Australia. At any rate, “The High Valley” is an unusual book of anthropology, a book in which the anthropologist reveals himself as well as the studied people.
November 11, 2012
Remarkable piece of anthropological research!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews