“What impressed Yali most were not the roads, the lights, and the tall buildings, but the Queensland Museum and the Brisbane Zoo. To his amazement, the museum was full of native New Guinea artifacts. One of the exhibits even contained his own people's carved ceremonial mask worn in the great puberty rituals of former times -- the very same mask which the missionaries had called the "works of Satan." Now, carefully preserved behind glass, the mask was being worshiped by priests in white frocks and a steady stream of well-dressed visitors, who talked in hushed tones.
...
It was not until after the war, while attending a government conference in Port Moresby, the capital of Australian New Guinea, that Yali realized the extend to which the missionaries had been lying to the natives. During the course of the conference Yali was shown a certain book which contained pictures of apes and monkeys becoming progressively more similar to men. At last the truth dawned on him: The missionaries had said that Adam and Eve were man's ancestors, but the whites really believed their own ancestors were monkeys, dogs, cats, and other animals.”
―
Marvin Harris,
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture
