Lost World of Irian Jaya, The

PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Text based on extracts from the author’s diaries, field notes and letters … / compiled by Sue Galley edited by M.T. Walker, J.A Peterson and C.C. Brooks.

Bibliography: p. [235].
This pictorial study of a fast disappearing part of the world is the work of a remarkable Australian geographer and anthropologist. From 1971 until his death in 1976 (he was only 30). Robert Mitton worked, lived and travelled in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya, formerly West Irian. In notes, letters, diaries and, above all, photographs, he compiled a unique document of his experiences of the cultures and environments of the five distinct groups living along the Balim (Baliem) River, a particularly remote part of the world. Indeed, at that time, there were still groups of people who had never seen Europeans or Indonesians; still groups living a Stone Age style of existence; and still people who were head-hunters and cannibals. With political, social, and technological changes coming so rapidly, many of the cultures Mitton observed are now disintegrating, and his record is a sad but enthralling and irreplaceable portrait of a people and region that will never be quite the same again.
ix, 234, [1] p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 29 cm. #121122
Indonesia. Irian Jaya. Description & travel, 1971-1976. Correspondence, diaries, etc.. | Indonesia. Irian Jaya. Social conditions, 1971-1976. Correspondence, diaries, etc.. | Ethnology — Indonesia — Papua. | Papua (Indonesia) — Description and travel. | Papua (Indonesia) — Social life and customs.