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Available in Paperback only
Price: £11.00
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Although the world’s distances have shrunk before the speed of modern-day travel, there are still a surprising number of isolated people and places. Among these are the tribes of the Outer Islands of Indonesia—Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, the Moluccas and Irian, the Indonesian part of New Guinea. Robin Hanbury-Tenison, whose book A Question of Survival played such a significant role in bringing the plight of Brazil’s Indians to the world’s attention, spent three months in 1973 travelling through the Outer Islands with his wife. In spite of the considerable difficulties which still faced travellers in Indonesia, once the main cities and often crowded coasts were left behind, the author reached a wide cross-section of peoples, ranging from the highly cultured Toraja of Celebes to the Dani of the Baliem Valley in New Guinea, who still use stone tools. There are, of course, many fundamental differences between the tribes of the Outer Islands and the Indians of South America, but there are also a remarkable number of similarities. The author’s thoughtful observations on the state of the tribal peoples of Indonesia, and what the future holds for them, provide a background to a fascinating description of an area few westerners have been able to visit even at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
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