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Clip description
Malcolm Douglas travels up the Strickland River, a tributary of the Fly River, and meets the Bagwa men of Papua New Guinea. The Bagwa pull Douglas’s motorboat through the thick grassy swamp and invite him to join them on a turtle hunt.
Curator’s notes
Douglas explains, ‘This chance meeting with the [Bagwa] men is the beginning of a long association with the tribe’. This clip highlights the Bagwa people’s knowledge and understanding of their natural environment, records their hospitality to the travellers, and provides examples of their cultural lifestyle in the late 1970s. For instance, the scenes with Douglas on the turtle hunt demonstrate a unique hunting technique.
