Papua New Guinea -The Land Of Cannibals

Unfortunately this has been a tag much sensationalised by certain tabloids and mainstream media outlets up untill now. In fact the last bastions of isolated peoples in Papua New Guinea that would have engaged in cannibalism ceased the practice decades ago. My own people for instance, were still head hunting up until the 1920s when the missionaries and colonial government put a stop to it, while 99% of the tribes would have ceased such practices by the 1950s since most of the mountainous interior finally made contact with the outside world by the 1940s. All of that with exeption of one tribe discovered only in the 1980s. Also note that not all tribes were cannibal but were just head-hunters(-that didn't have a penchant for human flesh) or more often tribes of warriors engaged in a never ending cycle of ritualistic and non-cannibalistic payback killings. One feature that they all had in common was an elaborate system of initiating or marking a person who'd slain an enemy (facial tattoos,facepaint,nose piercings, specific types of feathers worn-bird specie specific, etc).. Today most of the pictures you see of Papua New Guineans dressed fully painted and cladd in feathers are taken mostly during cultural shows or special occasions like the national independence day, school and university graduations ceremonies and government ground breaking ceremonies. Yet somehow they automatically paint a mental picture that most people live like this 24-7, 365 days a year. The is quite far from the truth and much the opposite. In favt all Papia New Guineans are dressed in modern/western clothing 99.9% of the time even in the most isolated jungle villages and remote mountain hamlets. It would be as absurd as believing that native american-indians were still taking scalps on the plains and prairies because you were shown recent photos of some of them dressed in feathers and facepaint ... Ridiculous right??..

Across the Papua New Guinea border in Papua- an Indonesian province also on the island of New Guinea- there are a small number of isolated tribes that have, till very recent times engaged in ritualistic cannibalism and at present are making a gradual transition into modernity. But you should feel safe knowing that all towns and cities on both sides are populated with individuals engaged in modernity in its various forms- we have lawyers, doctors, engineers, computer programers, social media influencers, jazz and electro pop artists, financial analysts and tech enthusiastis - all directly descended from tribes who once upon a time were headhunters or cannibals. So as much as the the media would love to give the you as a reader or viewer that sureal Indiana Jones/Tarzan-feel at the comfort of your sofa, do rest assured that you have been directly informed (without the ads or click bait) by someone from a contemporary tribal society that once was peopled with cannibalis and headhunters-warriors. And hopefully, will be equiped with enough facts to challenge even the most avid tabloid-believing critic.

Peace, much Love and Thank-You for reading this❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏