High in the mountains of New Guinea are a people untouched by contact with whites--the Mengti people. A baby is born, and given the name Gwe, meaning "seed." One night, as he nestles in his mother's arms, five days' walk away across a freezing mountain range, two white Australian patrol officers and a black policeman are killed in a surprise attack. The Australian press calls it murder. The native warriors call it justice. 
  We see Gwe grow up, save his father's life during an armed conflict, and learn of the goddess inhabiting a towering pine tree. Meanwhile, Alan Hull, studying anthropology in America, travels to New Guinea for research. The young anthropologist who impatiently questions people, demanding "data" and arousing anger, comes to see--intensely--that Gwe's people deserve his respect and kindness; that they have emotions like he does and are not "numbers" to put in notebooks in order to  advance his career. Racist preconceptions are opposed with true perception about inner lives on an island. 
  Aesthetic Realism, was the basis of Arnold Perey's doctoral dissertation sponsored by Margaret Mead at Columbia University--about the Mengti people: Oksapmin Society and World View. 

268 pages (6"x9"), $19.90