It is a crying shame
how, right across the world,
nations are destroying tribal cultures
thousands of years old.

There’s a tribe in Papua
where men and women live apart
eat sleep and work apart
do everything apart.

Fathers and mothers
live like divorcees in the west
taking it in turns
to supervise the children.

They come together only to make babies
under formal supervision.
Sex for fun is an important part of life
but only with your own gender.

Now folk no longer gather by moonlight
to venerate the ancestors.
Children by firelight are no longer told
tales from thousands of years ago.

They look down upon their elders
Want to wear clothes
Want to be helicopter pilots
Life has become grey and dull.

Just before a man dies
he names the witch who’s been
eating him up from the inside.
They wrap the witch in sago

roast him and eat him.
It is justice, the headman tells us
the witch has eaten a man
so the men must eat the witch.

The government has told the headman
no one must be eaten.
The witch must be allowed to live
and die of old age.

Violators go to prison for years.
The headman sadly admits to us
he is too frightened of the government
to resist or protest.