I started watching a marathon of “Living with the Kombai Tribe” on the travel channel. Basically two guys fly to West Papua and live among a tribe of people that as only discovered 25 years ago. Tribal village living naked in the jungle, eating grubs and wild pigs, and building tree houses. The show seems an honest attempt of these two men to adapt and gain acceptance to this tribe.
The thing that I found most disturbing wasn’t the tribe or their way of life. It was the fact when the show would go to commercial the “Lexus - pursuit if luxury” commercial would come on. I sat there in amazement and sadness as I see the affluence of the west as such a curse. The tribe elder made a comment that they do not use money. They do not even know how to get money. Somehow money was a symbol of the demise of their culture.
It is also interesting to note that there has been reported one Kombai conversion to Christianity since 1982.