Braving the maneater

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 15

Braving the maneater

A writer, Christina Dodwell, is this week’s river traveller, taking a trip down Papua New Guinea’s Wahgi River with its towering green crags, dizzy gorges and homicidal river torrents.

The Wahgi, which means “eater of men,” takes Dodwell and her team into the territory of tribespeople who are jealous of their privacy and independence. Not long before Dodwell made her visit, they had killed Government agents sent there on official business.

The programme begins with a placid steamer journey up the wide, crocodileinfested Sepik River, and ends with Dodwell’s American fellow-explorers reluctantly abandoning their expedition after twice being capsized and nearly drowned.

But Dodwell, with her cool, down-to-earth commentary, is not content with risking life on the raging waters. She also insists on being bloodily initiated into the Kraimbit tribe with a razor.

For most other television explorers, this might have been mere exhibitionism. But the fact that Christina Dodwell once spent two years living with a tribe in Papua New Guinea and has obvious respect for the people made her initiation seem quite natural — though still a little stomachturning. She makes her trip in “River Journeys” screening at 7 p.m. tomorrow on One.