Tribe Dying Of Rare Disease

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31994, 22 May 1969, Page 2

Tribe Dying Of Rare Disease

A visit in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea to a primitive tribe which was being decimated by a virus disease known locally as “the laughing death” was one of a number of strange encounters made by Miss Mary McGrath on her recent overseas trip.

“Their tribal ritual requires that when certain relatives die the bodies be buried for a week. Then the partly decomposed bodies are dug up and eaten,” she said in Christchurch yesterday. The incubation period for the disease, which was unique to the tribe, was nine months. Slight trembling was the first symptom and the victim eventually “screamed himself to death.” Miss McGrath was taken to the tribe by jeep and small plane, by an American couple who run a small mission station deep in the Highlands. Besearch had proved that the disease was a virus which attacked the brain, but the natives were convinced that a spell had been cast' over them. Although Miss McGrath is confined to a wheelcnair sbe would not be dissuaded from setting out into the Highlands. It was an adventure she undertook with typieal zest, being carried across ravines, jolting around in utility vehicles, and crossing 16,000 ft mountains, in small planes. Isolation and anakes were her main worries. “I saw a donkey bitten, and it died in a few hours,” she said. I Crocodiles were also not en- 1 dearing. But much of the more ac- i cessible jungle and mountain I country was "absolutely I beautiful,” and had great ; tourist potential. i The aim of Miss McGrath’s 1 trip, which was sponsored by i Atlantic and Pacific Travel, was to publicise New Zealand 1 in Australia and to gather ] facts for a South Pacific pro- <

motion tour which she will

undertake in the United States later this year.

"When I arrived in Melbourne Ansett - A.N.A. arranged for me to travel all over Australia,” she said.

Miss McGrath , travelled 30,000 miles. As well as the major Australian centres, she visited outback stations and towns, including Alice

. Springs, was carried up Ayers - Rock by two local residents, became stranded on Thurs- ■ day Island, where a Torres i Strait native missionary ' family accommodated her for : a few days, explored the Great Barrier Reef for a i fortnight, and visited Tas- ’ mania. Today she will return to I- Melbourne to continue the • promotion work she has de- ■ cided to make her career.