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National Geographic : 1966 Jun
Contents
trade routes along the New Britain coast. Some find their way into trade stores in Rabaul. Here the bush people can ex change their wages, earned by working on coconut and cacao plantations nearby, for the one medium of exchange that has supreme value in their homeland. Ownership of shells, and their use in complex financial transactions, offers the traditional road to personal prestige in the forest culture. Unmarried young men are considered too immature to be trusted with complete control of their own for tunes; they must give their shells over to the care of married relatives. Sun Seldom Penetrates Forest Ann and I wrote to each other frequent ly, the letters traveling through the forest by runner. Once a month one of us would go to the other's village; this plan in volved four-to-six-hour hikes over sharp, ankle-twisting limestone ridges and down into valleys to cross a bog or a swift stream (page 813). Tramping through the gloomy forest between Umbi and Dulago or on the trail to the coast, we seldom saw sky or sun light. They were shut out by frequent rain clouds and by towering trees, some with vast exposed root structures. We had to cross flood-swollen streams, where strong currents threatened to car ry us away. In this area the annual rain fall totals about 250 inches, much of it coming in sudden, savage cloudbursts. Such storms quickly turned the Apaun and other rivers, with their myriad small er tributaries, into raging brown torrents. Some streams we crossed on logs or crude shaky bridges; others we forded, at times clinging to a vine in depths that occasion ally were over our heads (page 814). Once during our stay, Ann and I met at Pomalal and walked to Kandrian to replenish our supplies and enjoy a taste of civilization. We timed our vacation for New Year's Day, so we could celebrate it with our friends at the government post and watch an exhibition of tribal dancing. Aside from this brief trip, we remained in our isolated villages for more than a year and rarely saw another outsider. For the most part we slept in the almost uninhabited villages and made daily trips to the forest to visit the people. Once I was forced to abandon my house and take refuge in the forest with the natives, 800
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