NAVIGATION

The conquest of the Papua New Guinea Highlands was driven by a thirst for gold. In the 1930's, believing in the promise of new gold deposits an adventurer called Michael Leahy and his brothers organised several expeditions into mountains that had never been penetrated before. When they reached the Central mountain range, to the south of which the Mendi people live, it was not covered in impenetrable forest as they had thought, but inhabited valleys that were filled with flourishing food crops.