First Contact: The Selling of the Last Savage

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Outside Magazine February 2005

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The Selling of the Last Savage (cont.)

FIRST CONTACT OR HOAX? I may never know. The last time I speak with Woolford, in December 2004, he's almost positive that the older man we came across was the same tribal chief he saw last year, but he's still uncertain about the rest of the men. He's already scheduled his next First Contact trek for August 2005, based on information he's gathered about an unknown tribe sighted in an area roughly 100 miles north of where we trekked. Woolford says this could be one of his last First Contact expeditions.

"People pay a lot of money for this trip, and I want to try to find them something," he says. "But locating new tribes is getting harder and harder—and who knows what you are going to come across, if anything."

As I listen to Woolford, he seems heartfelt and sincere, like a man who really wants to give his clients their money's worth. His love of the province is obvious, and he treats his porters exceptionally well, paying them generously and often buying them rubber boots and clothing.

Nevertheless, I can't stop feeling like I've done something wrong by participating in the First Contact experience, even if Woolford is correct in his belief that his treks are helping redefine exploration in a positive manner. The way Woolford sees it, the scholarly elite, once the gatekeepers of discovery, are having to make room for any adventure seeker who can pay for the experience. To him, the First Contact expedition is a means to further democratize the process.

"If a postal clerk is interested in primitive times," he argues, "who am I to say, ‘Oh, you only graduated from high school—you don't have a degree in anthropology; therefore, you're not qualified to see these people'? If you are fit, and you want to pay, then you should have the right to go."

Perhaps Woolford has a point. I confess that, a week after returning home, my reaction against what I see as his risky, exploitative style starts to fade. My intuition tells me that what I saw on our trek can't possibly exist. But what if it does? What if West Papua is the last place on earth where ghosts of the past still thrive in the present—where the surreal becomes real?

Now all I want to do is go back. But I don't know if I should.

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