The Lost Tribe

Book excerpt: 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.