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Cannibal Valley
A story on the heroic struggle for Christ in savage New Guinea -the most perilous mission frontier in the world . On the scene photographs from cannibal vally from Mr. Hitt.
- GenresBiography
253 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 7, 2012
Really enjoyed this book. It details the early Christian mission efforts in Papua New Guinea which took place in the 1950s to 1960s. This book is heavy on historical details and facts which some may not enjoy. But the work among the tribes in the area is fascinating. Fans of mission biographies will like it.
November 5, 2025
Written in 1962, this book is about mission evangelism right after WWII in Dutch East Guinea. The focus is on the interior tribes, primarily in the Baliem River Valley but also in a couple of the adjacent valleys. These valleys were very difficult to get to until airstrips were built. The ability to fly back and forth between the valleys and the coast aided the missionaries immensely.
The three basic tribes mentioned in the book were the Danis, Kapaukus, and Uhundunis although the focus was mostly on the Danis. These tribes were living in the stone age. Their knives were made of sharpened bamboo. Their weapons were stone axes, spears, and bows and arrows, primitive but deadly. Their diet was mainly sweet potatoes, taro, and pork. They dug their gardens with sharp poles. The women tended the gardens and lived with the young kids and pigs. The men lived separately and were polygamous. These primitive women were basically chattel.
Yes, these natives were cannibals, but they didn’t eat people to survive. They had lots of battles among themselves between clans. Sometimes an enemy killed in battle was taken and roasted and partially eaten. Usually this was done to taunt the enemy clan. There is one description in the book of such a ritual.
A number of different missionaries are involved in the book since they establish different stations within the valley. It’s a pretty big valley, some 30 miles long and lots of people. And there are side tributaries with their own settlements. Most of the missionaries begin with just the men trekking in. Once the airplane strips are available, the missionary wives and their children, if any, also arrive.
The end result after a variety of difficulties and setbacks was that some of the clans became Christians. In their own words, Jesus treated their hearts. Language was an issue, and in the valley, there were three dialects. The natives had no written language, so the missionaries worked on that along with learning to speak the native languages. They set up some schools and eventually got some of the natives to learn how to read, mostly younger males and women. Older males were generally resistant to schooling. Later the missionaries held classes for converts and produced some so called witness men; these fellows became preachers to their own people.
I liked the book. Having read Darlene Deibler Rose’s book earlier, this was sort of a follow-up. She appears in this book but only as one of the many who were involved. It’s good history and shows the pluck of missionaries in the mid-twentieth century.
The three basic tribes mentioned in the book were the Danis, Kapaukus, and Uhundunis although the focus was mostly on the Danis. These tribes were living in the stone age. Their knives were made of sharpened bamboo. Their weapons were stone axes, spears, and bows and arrows, primitive but deadly. Their diet was mainly sweet potatoes, taro, and pork. They dug their gardens with sharp poles. The women tended the gardens and lived with the young kids and pigs. The men lived separately and were polygamous. These primitive women were basically chattel.
Yes, these natives were cannibals, but they didn’t eat people to survive. They had lots of battles among themselves between clans. Sometimes an enemy killed in battle was taken and roasted and partially eaten. Usually this was done to taunt the enemy clan. There is one description in the book of such a ritual.
A number of different missionaries are involved in the book since they establish different stations within the valley. It’s a pretty big valley, some 30 miles long and lots of people. And there are side tributaries with their own settlements. Most of the missionaries begin with just the men trekking in. Once the airplane strips are available, the missionary wives and their children, if any, also arrive.
The end result after a variety of difficulties and setbacks was that some of the clans became Christians. In their own words, Jesus treated their hearts. Language was an issue, and in the valley, there were three dialects. The natives had no written language, so the missionaries worked on that along with learning to speak the native languages. They set up some schools and eventually got some of the natives to learn how to read, mostly younger males and women. Older males were generally resistant to schooling. Later the missionaries held classes for converts and produced some so called witness men; these fellows became preachers to their own people.
I liked the book. Having read Darlene Deibler Rose’s book earlier, this was sort of a follow-up. She appears in this book but only as one of the many who were involved. It’s good history and shows the pluck of missionaries in the mid-twentieth century.
October 21, 2017
Cannibal Valley by Russell T. Hitt
Unfortunately, it was one of the most chaotically organized books I’ve ever read. It follows the stories of dozens of missionaries as they reach out to numerous villages over a twenty-year span. But it doesn’t just tell their stories one at a time it jumps back and forth to follow the action. So if this missionary is starting a new station it follows him for a while then jumps over to this missionary who is starting to see, but backs up first to when he started his station. That’s not all. It switches from first-person narrative, to third person narrative, to direct quotes with very little to no indication of what’s going on. It was bad enough that for most of the book I didn’t know what point of the story we were actually in.
If you can get around that, it had some really good parts. There are snippets of individual interaction with the Danis and personal struggles of the missionaries. Then there are long passages describing the aim of the Mission organizations and their interaction. Though the most prominent part is the detailed descriptions of the struggles the missionaries had on the trails. It was worth reading, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it to strongly just because it was so chaotic.
Unfortunately, it was one of the most chaotically organized books I’ve ever read. It follows the stories of dozens of missionaries as they reach out to numerous villages over a twenty-year span. But it doesn’t just tell their stories one at a time it jumps back and forth to follow the action. So if this missionary is starting a new station it follows him for a while then jumps over to this missionary who is starting to see, but backs up first to when he started his station. That’s not all. It switches from first-person narrative, to third person narrative, to direct quotes with very little to no indication of what’s going on. It was bad enough that for most of the book I didn’t know what point of the story we were actually in.
If you can get around that, it had some really good parts. There are snippets of individual interaction with the Danis and personal struggles of the missionaries. Then there are long passages describing the aim of the Mission organizations and their interaction. Though the most prominent part is the detailed descriptions of the struggles the missionaries had on the trails. It was worth reading, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it to strongly just because it was so chaotic.
December 3, 2022
Kinda boring
December 23, 2017
I read this for the first time about twentysome years ago; I read it again to use as research for a paper for an online course. It describes the history of the interaction between Christian missionaries and the Dani people of Dutch New Guinea. It moves at a good pace, overall, even though it does bounce back-and-forth a bit in each chapter. It talks about the positive moments as well as the unpleasant moments experienced by the missionaries; it also talks about mistakes made and how they went about rectifying those mistakes. Ultimately, though, it talks about how God's spirit moved amongst the Dani people in their formerly hidden valley and an amazing spiritual awakening occurred.
The author describes how the hidden mountain valley and tribe was first discovered in 1938 by scientific expedition from America. The expedition stayed in the valley for a period of time while the scientists onboard collected specimens and data before continuing its journey across the Pacific Ocean. Knowledge of this previously undiscovered region was seen as a potentially fertile mission field to different agencies, and with the Christian and Missionary Alliance already having missionaries in the region they were prepared to send servants into the region. World War II interrupted the work of the missionaries for a period of time, but in the 1950s the missionaries did return to the hidden valley.
The book also describes the lives of the natives, how they lived a life that involved cannibalism, wife-stealing, orgiastic feasts, barbaric funeral rights, thievery, regular tribal warfare, and constant fear. The natives also had extensive sweet potato gardens that were enclosed in walls and had irrigation ditches to provide water to the gardens. They also had the ability to build strong rattan bridges that could support up to twenty people at a time. Their culture was built around multiple wives, cowrie shells, pigs, and potato gardens. The tribes fought wars with each other over various offenses .
It was an interesting book to read as it describes not only how Christianity slowly became accepted amongst the Dani people but also how the missionaries had to learn how to "translate" the Gospel message into terms the Dani people would understand. The lessons taught from the Bible (including the Ten Commandments) also had to be put into terms the Dani people would understand (as they had no concept of snow or sins or eternal life, among other spiritual concepts). At the same time, the Dani people did have some concepts of other spiritual things (moreso than the missionaries would have through possible). I realize the book is primarily composed of "snapshots" of the work of the missionaries in the Baliem Valley and that it cannot cover "everything" that occurred (including when the missionaries might have had very bad days). At the same time, it does cover quiet a bit between its pages.
It is an amazing historical record describing the hard work of the missionaries to not only witness to these Stone Age people, but to also have developed a written language (as the Dani language was oral and was not written down; they had no written language). Once the language was developed into a written language, the missionaries could start teaching both men and women, boys and girls, how to read and write. By increasing and improving the education levels of the Dani people, the missionaries helped to improve their overall lifestyle. The ones who clearly benefited the most from the education and the increasing opportunities the education presented were the females, both women and young girls. Male children also benefited, but males had always been more highly valued in this culture. Providing education helped to reveal that the women had value as well.
It is easily readable, and I still found it interesting, reading it again after all these years. I am glad that I (re)read it for my report. I think if I had not read numerous other history-oriented books that bounce "back-and-forth" in time I might not have enjoyed this book quite so much the second time around. However, I have read other books where the authors will go back a significant number of years to provide a backhistory about a particular person to better develop that person in the mind of the reader. Some authors will do such backtracking in separate chapters; others will include it in the current chapter. It did not bother me the first time I read the book, and it did not bother me again this time around, either. It was a good book.
The author describes how the hidden mountain valley and tribe was first discovered in 1938 by scientific expedition from America. The expedition stayed in the valley for a period of time while the scientists onboard collected specimens and data before continuing its journey across the Pacific Ocean. Knowledge of this previously undiscovered region was seen as a potentially fertile mission field to different agencies, and with the Christian and Missionary Alliance already having missionaries in the region they were prepared to send servants into the region. World War II interrupted the work of the missionaries for a period of time, but in the 1950s the missionaries did return to the hidden valley.
The book also describes the lives of the natives, how they lived a life that involved cannibalism, wife-stealing, orgiastic feasts, barbaric funeral rights, thievery, regular tribal warfare, and constant fear. The natives also had extensive sweet potato gardens that were enclosed in walls and had irrigation ditches to provide water to the gardens. They also had the ability to build strong rattan bridges that could support up to twenty people at a time. Their culture was built around multiple wives, cowrie shells, pigs, and potato gardens. The tribes fought wars with each other over various offenses .
It was an interesting book to read as it describes not only how Christianity slowly became accepted amongst the Dani people but also how the missionaries had to learn how to "translate" the Gospel message into terms the Dani people would understand. The lessons taught from the Bible (including the Ten Commandments) also had to be put into terms the Dani people would understand (as they had no concept of snow or sins or eternal life, among other spiritual concepts). At the same time, the Dani people did have some concepts of other spiritual things (moreso than the missionaries would have through possible). I realize the book is primarily composed of "snapshots" of the work of the missionaries in the Baliem Valley and that it cannot cover "everything" that occurred (including when the missionaries might have had very bad days). At the same time, it does cover quiet a bit between its pages.
It is an amazing historical record describing the hard work of the missionaries to not only witness to these Stone Age people, but to also have developed a written language (as the Dani language was oral and was not written down; they had no written language). Once the language was developed into a written language, the missionaries could start teaching both men and women, boys and girls, how to read and write. By increasing and improving the education levels of the Dani people, the missionaries helped to improve their overall lifestyle. The ones who clearly benefited the most from the education and the increasing opportunities the education presented were the females, both women and young girls. Male children also benefited, but males had always been more highly valued in this culture. Providing education helped to reveal that the women had value as well.
It is easily readable, and I still found it interesting, reading it again after all these years. I am glad that I (re)read it for my report. I think if I had not read numerous other history-oriented books that bounce "back-and-forth" in time I might not have enjoyed this book quite so much the second time around. However, I have read other books where the authors will go back a significant number of years to provide a backhistory about a particular person to better develop that person in the mind of the reader. Some authors will do such backtracking in separate chapters; others will include it in the current chapter. It did not bother me the first time I read the book, and it did not bother me again this time around, either. It was a good book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews