The Last Cannibals
Author: Jens Bjerre
Publisher: Michael Joseph, London, England
Edition: First, 1956
ISBN: Not stated
Language: English
Condition: Good. Clean copies with tight binding. Tears and nicks to the dustjacket
Binding: Hardcover with dustjacket
Pages: 192. Print with images
Additional Information
If you want to know the home life of a cannibal...
If you want to see a South Seas paradise in action...
If you wonder what odd rites are practiced by the modern savage...
You will find answers to all this and more in Jens Bjerre's fascinating account of four expeditions into the primitive territories of Australia and New Guinea. This remarkable book is the first ever written by the famous young Danish explorer, Jens Bjerre. It is alive with his own enthusiasm for the little-known places and peoples of the world, from the aborigines of Australia to the cannibals of New Guinea. Bjerre lived among these peoples, exploring their innermost beliefs, observing their strange sex lives, photographing a variety of fantastic ceremonies and rites. His first visit was to an aborigine reserve in the desert of central Australia. There he became a member of the tribe, moving with them on their nomadic wanderings, sharing in a kind of life that has not varied for thousands of years from the complicated system of tribal marriage to the gruesome ritual of circumcision. Then a helicopter jump from one Stone Age to another, to New Guinea, where hundreds of thousands of people have never heard of white men and it will be many a year before the last cannibal has finished his favourite meal. Here Bjerre divided his time between the Kukukuku, a warlike tribe, the Morombo and more civilized Kumans, and the island paradise of Manam. Bjerre was quickly at home with the Kukukuku cannibals, finding in them an attractive, spontaneous sense of humour. (His explanation of their cannibalism is completely practical.) Among the Kumans, he made a special study of the courting habits, in which the women carefully select and propose to their intended mates. And his visit to Manam was an idyll. Mr. Bjerre writes with such fresh vigour that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that The Last Cannibals is both an original anthropological study and the best kind of travel book: accurate, provocative, highly readable, and magnificently illustrated.
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Cannibal | Australia | New Guinea
