March-April, 19i5 



CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN 



Page 5 



BRYAN PATTERSON MISSING 

 ON WESTERN FRONT 



Pfc. Bryan Patterson (on leave (rem his 



post as Curator of Paleontology at the 



Museum since October, 1943 for service 



with the Army) 



Eh as been reported 

 missing in action 

 on the Western 

 Front, in an official 

 telegram received 

 from the War De- 

 partment by Mrs. 

 Patterson. 

 Several weeks 

 before the receipt 

 of this news, Mr. 

 Patterson had been 

 reported wounded 

 by shrapnel, and temporarily hospitalized, 

 but the reports indicated those injuries 

 were slight in nature, thus accounting for 

 his apparent early return to active duty. 

 Since so large a proportion of those listed 

 as "missing in action" turn out to be 

 prisoners of war and eventually are returned, 

 Mr. Patterson's family and Museum asso- 

 ciates have strong hopes of hearing good 

 news about him, especially since the unit 

 to which he was attached was apparently 

 on the advance at the time he was re- 

 ported missing. 



Mr. Patterson entered the Army in 

 October, 1943. He has been a member of 

 the Museum staff since 1926. 



BRYAN PATTERSON 



U. S. FLIERS IN NEW GUINEA 

 DISCOVER A SHANGRI-LA 



By DONALD COLLIER 



CURATOR, SOUTH AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 

 AND ARCHAEOLOGY 



Recently a sealed, hidden valley populated 

 by an estimated 50,000 natives who had 

 never seen or been seen by white men was 

 discovered in the unexplored heart of the 

 Oranje Mountains in central Dutch New 

 Guinea, 150 miles from Hollandia. The 

 discovery of this real-life Shangri-La was 

 made by the crew of a United States Army 

 air transport on a mission of exploration in 

 search of new strategically advantageous 

 flying routes across New Guinea. 



The island of New Guinea, which is more 

 than 1,500 miles long and second in area 

 only to Greenland, contains one of the few 

 extensive unexplored areas remaining in the 

 world. The least known part of the island 

 is its mountainous backbone that rises to 

 eternally snow-covered peaks more than 

 16,000 feet high. 



Because of the dense and nearly impene- 

 trable jungle that lies between these moun- 

 tains and the coasts to the north and south, 

 this interior region has been reached at 

 only a few places by government exploring 

 parties and missionaries. In 1938 the 

 Archbold Expedition flew an amphibian 

 plane to Lake Habbema at an altitude of 

 11,000 feet, and discovered 60,000 unknown 



natives living in a near-by mountain valley. 

 The following account of the new dis- 

 covery by the Army Air Force is from a 

 report by George Lait, International News 

 Service correspondent, published in a New 

 Guinea news sheet of the Army. 



VANISHING RIVER 



"The C-47 transport flew into the moun- 

 tain valley and for an hour skimmed back 

 and forth less than 100 feet above the 

 valley's floor. For the first time in history, 

 this twenty-by-five mile cleft in the towering 

 mountains was photographed. 



"Completely encompassed by sheer, jag- 

 ged mountains, some of which are more 

 than 12,000 feet high and some perpetually 

 snow-covered, the sealed valley runs for 

 about twenty miles almost due north and 

 south. Through the center of the five-mile- 

 wide floor of the valley which is 5,500 feet 

 above sea level, winds the Baliem River, 

 which enters the sealed valley at its southern 

 extremity in a 2,000-foot fall down an 

 almost perpendicular cliff of bare rock. At 

 the northern extremity of the valley, the 

 river vanishes into a huge hole in a moun- 

 tain, a natural grotto, the arch of which is 

 at least 300 feet above the surface of the 

 stream. It was impossible to ascertain from 

 the air whether the river again returned to 

 the surface. 



"The entire valley floor, as well as the 

 sloping hills which edge the towering peaks, 

 has been placed in an extensive and efficient 

 state of cultivation. The whole level section 

 for the full twenty-mile length is under 

 irrigation, with seemingly endless series and 

 rows of ditches to carry water from the 

 swift-flowing Baliem to farming plots as 

 much as three miles from the river bank. 



CHECKERBOARD FIELDS 



"The fields themselves are laid out in 

 checkerboard squares, as perfectly formed 

 as the fields of Iowa would appear from the 

 air, and varying in size from tiny 100 X 

 100-foot plots to vast projects encompassing 

 as much as 50 to 60 acres. 



"On the hillsides, where irrigation is 

 impossible, these primitive farmers likewise 

 have utilized every available inch of arable 

 land. Rocks have been cleared away and 

 piled in neat fence-like rows, completely 

 bordering the growing crops and giving the 

 appearance of a ruggedly hilly New England 

 farming section. 



"Scattered throughout the length and 

 breadth of the valley are more than 100 

 native villages, some covering fifteen acres, 

 and each surrounded by either a fence of 

 woven reeds and twigs, or by a perfectly 

 straight stone fence about breast high. The 

 houses have circular thatched roofs. 



CROPS IDENTIFIED FROM AIR 



"Skimming less than 100 feet over the 

 valley floor, one was able to identify among 

 the native crops banana trees, a water plant 



(swamp taro) extensive patches 



of the native sweet potato or yam, and a 

 waist-high plant closely re.sembling tobacco. 



"Of animals, only a few dogs and pigs 

 were seen. The pigs, staple meat food 

 throughout New Guinea and religiously 

 revered by most natives of the island, 

 appeared exceptionally large and well kept, 

 and of two varieties — an all-black or dark 

 brown species, and a black and white 

 variety, the latter growing to immense size. 



"When the plane first roared over the 

 valley, crowds of natives ran from their 

 houses and vanished into the standing crops 

 or clumps of trees. But after flying down 

 the valley several times, their child-like 

 curiosity seemed to overcome their fear of 

 the motors — they cautiously emerged to 

 watch the soaring plane." 



This bird's-eye account suggests that 

 these newly discovered people are Papuans 

 similar in their customs to other groups of 

 natives previously encountered in the 

 interior of New Guinea. In their methods 

 of agriculture, including the irrigation 

 systems for growing swamp or wet taro, 

 and in the kinds of crops cultivated, the 

 form and arrangement of their houses, and 

 the possession of pigs and dogs, these people 

 share in the already known culture of the 

 interior Papuans. 



IMPORTANT TO SCIENCE 



The discovery of such a group is anthro- 

 pologically important, however, because it 

 offers the opportunity to study a people 

 uninfluenced by whites or even by their 

 lowland neighbors and possibly to discover 

 new variations in social organization or 

 religion. The plane crew was under the 

 impression that these people had lighter 

 skins than those of any other natives they 

 had seen in New Guinea. This would 

 appear to be a difficult question to judge 

 from the air, and should be left open until 

 a government or missionary party reaches 

 the group after the war. 



It is interesting to note that although 

 tobacco, an American plant, probably did 

 not reach New Guinea until the 16th Cen- 

 tury, the native tribes of the interior, who 

 have never seen a white man, have been 

 found not only growing and smoking 

 tobacco, but believing their ancestors had 

 done so from time immemorial. 



There are no less than 79 different kinds 

 of birds of paradise in New Guinea and the 

 surrounding islands. Thirteen of these may 

 be seen in Hall 21. 



The giant frog, well-named Rana golialh, 

 found only in a limited jungle area in West 

 Africa, is represented in Hall 18 by a life- 

 size model. It is much admired by would-be 

 frog farmers, who frequently inquire as to 

 the possibility of importing it to the United 

 States for breeding purposes. 



