This film is the first episode of an obscure adventure documentary series “High Adventure with Lowell Thomas”. It originally aired in 1970 and was directed and photographed by Gerald Feil and produced by Milton Fruchtman. It was written by Hila Feil, who also authored several novels. The series featured and was hosted by famed adventurer, author, broadcaster and lecturer Lowell Thomas. In this episode, a scouting expedition visits the unmapped rural areas of the jungle on the Australian island, New Guinea, attempting to locate and establish contact with the completely secluded Biami and Anger cannibalistic tribes.

This documentary begins with preview footage from the tribes’ territory (00:08), and Lowell Thomas presents the episode (01:05). An aircraft flies over the jungle and the Nomad River on New Guinea Island (02:06). After the landing, the expedition crew exits the aircraft (02:58). The leading Australian patrol officer, Robin Barkley, shows Lowell Thomas a broken female skull from previous cannibalistic tribal attack (03:37). With more than 100 expedition partakers, consisting of the camera crew, government patrols, one female participant, and cooperative members of other tribes, they initiate the journey into the jungle (05:25). Split into two search parties, and Lowell’s expedition crew reaches the base of the Anger tribe (05:48). The men of the tribe are marching, playing drums, and chanting as a part of an Anger celebratory ceremony (05:58). Dressed in pieces of fabric wrapped around their waist and feathery headwear, they work to complete the construction of a road (07:04). The women of the tribe are dressed similarly, whilst singing insulting words to the working men, due to the tribal belief that women are hostile beings (07:26). The Anger tribe use stranded seashells as currency and wear them around their necks as a measure of wealth (08:43). In a small wooden hut, an elder man lies on his dead bed, and the tribe’s sorcerer communicates with spirits using a medium made of twigs tied together (09:42). Tribe warriors execute a mock battle (11:51). The women of the tribe, covered in symbolic ashes, cry out as they perform a mourning-ritual (12:36). The second search party, the Nomad crew, are hiking through the jungle (13:11). They discover a house of the Biami tribe and establish friendly intentions by buying bananas from the tribe (13:36). The patrol continues their tiring journey through the jungle (17:07). They reach an abandoned site of the Biami tribe, and discover skeletons lying on wooden beds, revealing the tradition of raising their dead onto platforms to protect the living ( 19:08). Lowell attempts to contact the Nomad patrol using radio (19:24). The Nomad patrol clears a big area of the jungle to make space for an aircraft to drop food and medical supplies (20:22). They set up camp (20:37). Leech bites are tended to, using anti-biotics (20:58). Tribal members appear in the camp in search of medical attention (21:16). The 206 airplane drops supplies in the cleared area, and patrol members collect the packages (23:45). Young men of the Anger tribe are doing a sacred ritual to be initiated into manhood (25:59). They plant irises as a sign of purity, and ice-cold water is poured into their eyes to prove their strength against women (26:33). After one week the men return to the village, and the women are greeting them with songs of insults before choosing which newly initiated man they wish to marry (29:34). Men of the Anger tribe considered war an art, and they shape masks of clay before each battle to make mud amor (34:11). The Nomad expedition find a village of an unknown tribe, not previously discovered (36:45). A father and a son are wearing small fabric covers and bone-carved sticks through their septum (37:00). The camera crew is invited into the solitary house of the village (37:55). With only beetles left to eat, they finalize their journey by discovering one last tribe, also previously unknown to man (41:34). Robin Barkley establishes a relation with the people of the tribe by sharing cigarettes (43:03). He asserts dominance by using a rifle to kill a pig and serve it to the village (47:23). The documentary is concluded with Lowell Thomas making an outro (50:01).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com