Introduction

When I first planned to study the Chimbu, I chose them from among the New Guinea highlands people for the special characteristics which enable me to write this book. The discovery in the 1930’s of the dense populations in the New Guinea highlands was an unparalleled opportunity to record the first phases of western contact and social change of isolated peoples. Anthropologists have always been interested in the situation of first contact and speculated about the reactions, interactions and events which occurred. Some record exists in many areas, but the questions modern anthropologists ask developed only after most of the world had some experience of the west. America, Africa and Asia were discovered and colonized by Europeans before anthropology became a recognized subject. The circumstances of first contact and subsequent events are, for the most part, lost. Thus the study of change among the New Guinea highland peoples is an exceptional opportunity for anthropologists.