Synopses & Reviews
Two years before this story begins, the Liawep were living deep in the jungle of Papua, New Guinea, long forgotten by the outside world. Numbering seventy-nine men, women, and children, the tribe worshipped a mountain, dressed in leaves, and hid when planes flew overhead, believing them to be evil sanguma birds. Their discovery by a missionary hit the headlines in 1993. Galvanized by the reports of people living in Stone Age conditions, Edward Marriott set out to find the Liawep. Banned from visiting the tribe by the New Guinea government, he assembled his own ragtag patrol and ventured illegally into the wilderness in search of his quarry. Nothing could have prepared him for what he found or for the dramatic events that followed. A thrilling, superbly written adventure, The Lost Tribe is a memorable account of what happens when good intentions go awry, when rational man meets primal beliefs, and when a small, primitive people are ensnared by the predations of civilization.
Review
"A stunning cast of characters, as beautifully observed as the jungle scenery in Marriott's spellbinding account... Travel writing raised to the level of high adventure."-John Bert
"A gripping account ... reads like a suspense novel; it is also a sobering indictment of colonialism and its lingering legacy of cultural annihilation."-Outside Magazine
Synopsis
Marriott tells of his harrowing passage into New Guinea's jungle of Papua in search of a newly discovered tribe known as the Liawep, living in Stone Age conditions. After assembling a ragtag patrol and venturing illegally into the wilderness, nothing could have prepared Marriott for what he found. Map.
About the Author
Edward Marriott, a journalist and broadcaster, is the author of Savage Shore: Life and Death with Nicaragua's Last Shark Hunters. The Lost Tribe, his first book of travel writing, was a finalist for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and a New York Times Best Travel Book of 1997.