The ‘primitive’ forest tribe who can outfox any Western expert
Some of us are merely tourists. We’re content with a sunbed, sangria and Factor 50 Ambre Solaire. others, a hardier breed they, demand more from the world. These are the travellers, in search of authenticity.
As adventurer Will millard sallied into remote West Papua, to find a clan of native hunter-gatherers in My Year With The Tribe (BBC2), he wanted to taste man’s prehistoric past, and to live as our ancestors did. That was true travelling.
The Korowai people of West Papua were discovered by the outside world just 40 years ago — hunter-gatherers with wooden spears, sleeping in communal huts about 30ft off the ground. In these treehouses, they were safe from wild animals.
Though most of the Korowai have become Westernised, it didn’t take Will long to track down one primitive family. Their head-man markus hunted with a stick bow and wore nothing but a bamboo sheath.
Quickly overcoming his fear of the white man, markus was happy to sing Korowai hunting songs and teach Will how to find the juiciest jungle grubs. He proudly showed off the rickety treehouse where he lived, he said, with his two wives.
Will was lapping it up. The filmmaker was saddened, though, to spot markus taking a fag break, wearing a faded American T-shirt. Had Western corruption reached even this far?
At this point, markus couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer. He was an amiable, wizened man, perpetually tickled by the gullibility of tourists and twerps making TV documentaries.
of course he didn’t live naked in the trees, eating grubs and wearing a wooden willy-warmer. Why would he, when he could have electricity, medicine, processed food and other modern conveniences? All this hunter-gatherer nomad palaver was just panto for the cameras.
Will looked so heartbroken that markus cheered him up by making ‘traditional rat stew’ and giving his guest the ‘honour’ of eating the ‘greatest delicacy’ . . . its testicles. Will fell for it, of course. Talk about a ‘taste of prehistory’ — they’re probably still laughing in West Papua now.
All credit to Will for admitting he’d been played for a fool. He was more honest than the BBC team for Human Planet, which in 2011 paid the Korowai to build treehouses 100ft high, before passing them off on screen as real. Still, it made uncomfortable viewing to watch markus and his family parade themselves near-naked, staging Stone Age rituals in exchange for cigarettes and cash. Will was full of liberal angst about the corrosive effect of Western culture, but he was treating these people like performing animals.
If it took a naive mindset to fall for the Korowai, you’d have to believe in unicorns and fairies before taking Lifeline ( C4) seriously. This Spanish medical drama, the latest of the addictive thrillers on offer from Channel 4’s foreign telly guru Walter Iuzzolino, is dafter than Looney Tunes.
Quick summary of episode one: dishy heart surgeon needs a heart transplant himself. The donor is a journalist — and his heart is packed with memories of the murders that he was investigating.
Now the doctor himself is tormented by flashbacks, including visions of the reporter’s own death.
As always with mad Spanish TV melodrama, such as BBC4’s I Know Who You Are, the actors display total conviction.
There’s not a shred of irony — every scene is overflowing with feverish emotion.
That lets viewers indulge in the madness, too. We can believe the heart is crammed with memories. Why not . . . it’s no sillier than rat stew.