The New Head Hunters

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"Those heads, considered as the living presence of powerful ancestors, could have been used for magical purposes, in warfare in particular,'' says Garnier. When a warrior had taken a head he would now be "a respected man, able to cover his body in black paint, a sign of homicide." The victim's head was boiled in a special pot to release the flesh and tendons. Then, after it had been appropriately adorned, it would be displayed alongside the heads of ancestors. Head-hunting is no longer practiced - it was firmly discouraged by the first Christian missionaries - so the remaining skulls have particular significance as a record of a vanished era. While the rituals and ceremonies associated with the ancestor and warrior cults are still performed in secret, says Garnier, "the skulls have not been well protected."

Nowadays the once feared tribes of the upper Sepik live peacefully among their fruit and vegetable gardens, catching fish in gossamer-fine nets stretched across creek beds or floated out into the river. Their remoteness has protected them from many of civilization's problems, but it has also brought them few modern comforts. They have no electricity, purified water supply or hospitals; there are few working schools or telephones, and the only communication is via radios at the handful of mission stations dotted across the region.

Some money is generated by their internationally famed skills as wood carvers, but trade is sporadic. "The need for cash for school fees is so urgent," says p.n.g.-based anthropologist Nancy Sullivan, who has consulted on aid projects in the region. "There's no development. Boat fuel is so expensive. They are not poor the way people in Africa are. They have their gardens and the river, but they do not have cash." Exploiting this cash vacuum are some unscrupulous artifact dealers who travel up and down the river, taking advantage of its people's poverty to mine a rich vein of cultural treasure.

The problem is not, of course, isolated to p.n.g. Developing countries across the globe are suffering from the rich nations' fascination with their exotic ways of life. From Nigerian terracotta busts and Malay skulls to Iraqi statues and Afghan coins, an enthusiastic trade has developed in selling off the icons of exotic cultures to grace the living rooms and galleries of Europe, America and Asia. "Trafficking in cultural property has become not only a lucrative business for certain traders, but also an extremely tempting source of additional income for populations living in poverty, above all in the country of origin of the cultural goods," notes a 2004 United Nations report. It estimates the international trade in "looted, stolen or smuggled art" at $4.5 billion to $6 billion a year. In p.n.g., says museum director Eoe, the trade in illegal artifacts is probably "a multi-million-dollar business, but we don't really have any idea of the true extent.''