It was the noisiest weekend in Rabaul since 1943, when U.S. bombers flattened the South Pacific town. Seemingly bent on the same sort of destruction, rival tribesmen swarmed into the two-acre market square, wrecked the open-air benches piled with produce, belted one another, battered police cars, beat up the native constabulary and shoved a fire engine over a four-foot bank. It all began when, in the midst of a jostling market crowd, a Sepik tribesman pinched the stern of a shapely Tolai tribeswoman.
In other cultures, this simple admiring social gesture might have earned no more than an unappreciative slap. But...
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