New Guinea Tribe Sues The New Yorker For $10M

Forbes :

In an April 21, 2008, New Yorker story, "Vengeance Is Ours," Pulitzer Prize-winning geology scholar Jared Diamond describes blood feuds that rage for decades among tribes in the Highlands of New Guinea. Diamond tells the story using a central protagonist: Daniel Wemp, member of the Handa clan, a blood-thirsty warrior bent on avenging his uncle's death. That quest, writes Diamond, touched off six years of warfare leading to the slaughter of 47 people and the theft of 300 pigs.

Now Diamond's protagonist is fighting Diamond. A two-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 20 seeks $10 million from the New Yorker's publisher, Advance Publications, claiming Diamond's story falsely accused Wemp and fellow tribesman Isum Mandigo of "serious criminal activity" and "murder."

Read the whole story: Forbes

Comments

[Mannock]

DOES ANYTHING RALLY HAPPEN THERE? W hear of tribes that never had contact with the world telling the world that it was all a joke. Cannibals and headhunters who never were cannibals OR headhunters. They are not anthropological studies. They are rejects from central casting.

[elcojonu]

............. and if you don't pay-up, we'll come over there, shrink your heads and put them in keychains.

[BlueZoo]

I can't help but wonder who the lawyer is that filed this suit. It will probably be settled out of court, with the lawyers getting all the money.

[The Albany Kid]

Speaking of New Guinea, I wonder what sort of backlash there would be if the New Yorker did a piece on the Sambian tribe (whose treat of children is way too unspeakable to describe here).

[yappnmutt]

goose and gander. if the author had maligned the reputation of someone from the civilized world who's judgement wasn't settled by the courts or overwhelming public record then he would be sued for the same reasons this tribe is suing.

the white man brought lawyers when they brought guns to these people. they got their wish. the object of white man's burden has been civilized.

[Joethepauper]

I've read "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and Ive read other books about Papua New Guinea, and seen plenty of documentaries about that country. There were still cannibals there in the 1800's, and some incidents more recently. There are "Rascals" on the roads to the highlands who rob passing cars at gunpoint (thanks to someone giving them shotguns. Before the "white man" arrived, they only had the weapons they could make from the forest.) There are still tribal feuds where people from one tribe avenge the death of another tribe member. They still trade in pigs and seashells and have no use for money in some areas. I believe Jared Diamond AND the tribesman. The tribesman might have exaggerated his stories to make them more exciting. It's probably kinda boring living off the Sago Palm out there in unspoiled paradise, and one's imagination can tend to wander. However, in unspoiled paradise, hidden from any sort of law enforcement, if your tribe is under threat, the law of the jungle takes over, and I can only imagine what happens on that rare occasion. When the white man brought guns, religion, and alcohol, they basically ruined paradise. We should have left one area of the earth with a 4th world population untouched. I'd move there if it weren't for the guns.

[wm1066]

It wasn't until WW2 when our planes flew over the island did people realize there were tribes living in the interior. Thats because the tribalism on the island didn't let family groups move freely about. You had tribes living in a valley for generations that didn't have any contact with other parts of the island for fear of being eaten by their neighbors.
(Kinda like the "sharks" in New York who couldn't go to the Statten Island Ferry because the 'Jets' were in there way.)

[NotYouAgain]

You can buy a lot of pigs for $10M.

Can't wait to see tribes start going after NatGeo for intrusion into their cultures and exploiting their women by publishing "nudie" photos of them.

[toocoldout]

The new yorker shouldn't be so gullible, especially when publishing stories that destroy the reputations of others.

[sdried]

As many times as I have read and heard Jared Diamond, I find it hard to believe that such a profoundly humanistic scholar would have deliberately deceived his readers or defamed his subjects. I patiently await his explanation.

[humble liberty]

Well better this than killing Diamond.

[PlayTOE]

If Jared Diamond has presented a totally fabricated story as 'real' without in any way evidencing his very serious charges, then he is guilty of serious misconduct, and slander against those named in his story.

[Solaris123]

When the mouse roared....

[RRShearer]

This is actually a serious story that we at StinkyJour­nalism.org have been researching for the past year..."St­inkyJourna­lism sent three researchers into Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) starting in July 2008 to fact check Diamond's article, which ran a year ago today in the April 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker Magazine. We soon discovered that Henep Isum, his main character and indigenous tribesman, was NOT in a wheelchair with spinal paralysis as Diamond dramatically claimed. Yet Diamond wrongly published this error, as well as many others....

I don't know about you, but I can not imagine what it would be like to find out one morning that your name is in the New Yorker, saying your are a killer, and no one ever fact checked and you were just driving Mr. Daisy around....One member of the Handa tribe who is a PhD student in Queensland, AU received peer reviewer's notes for a paper he submitted stating that he should have mentioned the violence in his area and then cited Diamond's bogus article.

These tribes are peaceful. They do business in Papua New Guinea. People apparently don't like doing business with the more aggressive tribes. Anyway, since when is okay to call someone a killer and not even know if it's true or if the person exists? What happened to all that fact-checking at the New Yorker ?
http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-149.php

[nettyspagetti]

Thank you for your research, I hope the New Yorker is forced to pay every penny

[ResistanceisFutile]

You should wait until all the details are in.

The New Yorker is a reputable magazine. The author, as a freelancer, is responsible for the article. The author should have been sued. They went for what they thought were the deep pockets.

[Tulka2]

A libel suit? How quaint. I cannot help but remember Margaret Mead remarking that of all the places she had been, the one culture she couldn't like was New Guina's.

(I hope Daniel Wemp has heard what happened to Oscar Wilde when he sued for defamation.)

[Tulka2]

New Guinea....­.arrrrrrgg­ggg.

[ejay579]

I seem to remember an article several years ago indicating that some of the natives BSed Margaret Mead when she was gathering information for "Coming of Age In Samoa" the crux of which was the natives had a good laugh on Mead. Substitute Diamond for Mead here.

[blukazoo]

And I thought this would be a story about how Billy couldn't marry that guy that been pounding his...