Cultures of the Central Highlands, New Guinea

A LTHOUGH FEW AREAS in New Guinea have occasioned more interest and aroused more speculation than the Central Highlands, the peoples and cultures of this region are still largely unknown. Since the war, several anthropologists have made intensive studies of a small number of groups in the easternmost valleys, and valuable information has been contributed from time to time by members of missionary orders tationed among the people farther to the west; but a great deal remains to be done before we are in a position to assess the significance and the relationships of the Highland cultures. Some groups have not yet been contacted by European government; others are still classed as uncontrolled, and the task of those who are contemplating field-work in the area is not an easy one. Even if they have a specific interest inmind, there is a dearth of factual information to guide them in the choice of a likely locale for their operations. It is obviously impossible at present to make any definite pronouncements on problems peculiar to the Highlands, or to divide them, at least with any finality, into their component culture areas; but there is need for a move in this direction, for a survey of the work already done and for an attempt to assess the principal similarities and differences of the numerous groups comprising the large population. In the past, little or no attempt has been made to obtain a systematic ethnographic coverage of New Guinea. Between the two world wars, the pattern of research was extremely haphazard. Individual workers were neither required nor encouraged to coSirdinate their activities, nor to regard them as fitting into any more comprehensive plan. The result was a number of studies which covered a vast geographical area but which were widely separated and largely unrelated. I do not, for that reason, question the value of these con-