The Lost Tribe: A Search Through the Jungles of Papua New Guinea

Two years before this story begins, the Liawep were a lost tribe. There were seventy-nine of them, living in deep jungle in far northwest Papua New Guinea. They worshipped a mountain and dressed in leaves. They hid when planes flew overhead, believing them to be evil sanguma birds. There was no record of them in census books; as far as the outside world was concerned they did not exist. Edward Marriott first heard about the Liawep tribe in 1993, when their 'discovery' by a missionary hit the international headlines. Unable to believe that anyone could still be truly lost, he set out to find them himself, to hear their stories, hopes for the future and fears for their changing world. Banned by the Papua New Guinea government from visiting them, he assembled his own patrol and crossed the jungle illegally. However, nothing could prepare him for what he found nor for the dramatic events that followed. Intriguing and impressive, The Lost Tribe is both a compelling adventure story and an extraordinary account of a small society caught at a time of dramatic change.