When the whole idea of the world around me collapsed (5 photos)

This photograph was taken during "first contact" between white people and the indigenous people of the central highlands of the island of New Guinea.

The moment when the inhabitants of New Guinea lost their entire understanding of the world around them...





In the 1930s, a group of Australian gold miners led by the Leahy brothers began exploring remote areas of New Guinea, where it turned out that more than a million people lived with no previous contact with the rest of the world. This moment could be compared to the meeting of the Spanish conquistadors and the indigenous people of America, or the British and the aborigines of Australia.

For the man in the photograph, meeting the photographer meant the end of the world as he knew it. He had just learned that the peoples inhabiting New Guinea are not the only people on Earth, and the mountain range is not the “end of the world” as he and his ancestors imagined. Probably the most frightening thing for a native was to see white people dressed in clothes. He mistook the aliens for the ghosts of his ancestors who came for him from the afterlife.



The Leahy brothers first crossed the mountain range in 1930. They later returned for further research. Then they took cameras with them and filmed the first contact with the local tribes. The presented photo was taken by one of the brothers.

Most likely, when meeting with the indigenous peoples, the gold miners were saved by their unusual appearance for this area. The natives decided that the spirits of their ancestors had appeared to them.



One of the Leahy brothers during their first meeting with the natives of New Guinea

The mountain people, isolated from the outside world for thousands of years, were shocked by modern technology, such as gramophones and firearms, which gold miners used to intimidate the locals and protect themselves from attack.

The island of New Guinea was discovered by Europeans in the 16th century and was largely unexplored until the early 20th century due to the dense vegetation and the fact that the island is divided by a mountain range with many peaks reaching heights of 4,000 m. Many attempts were made by various colonial powers to exploration of this island ended in failure, so until the 1930s no one imagined that anyone could live in this area.



One of the explorers shoots a pig to intimidate the natives and show them the power of firearms

According to scientists, the tribes of people inhabiting the mountains of New Guinea arrived there more than 40,000 years ago. They first hunted and gathered, and then independently discovered agriculture, long before the Europeans did. At the time of discovery, the Aboriginal people were still using Stone Age technology.

Due to the complex landscape and difficult terrain, they lived in several isolated communities in which completely different cultures and languages developed. Papua New Guinea is now the most linguistically diverse country in the world.



The natives of New Guinea hear the gramophone for the first time. They think spirit voices are coming from the box