Edens

From the early 1960s onwards, Philip’s photography was of a high enough quality to be sought after by the major papers. With jobs and assignments from publications such as the Observer and the Guardian, Philip chose the jobs that would take him the furthest afield. Upon travelling to Papua New Guinea in 1973 he himself said; “Most of us live in artificial, man-made worlds that limit our experiences. I was fortunate enough to be able to wander for months among the Stone Age tribes who inhabit the Central Highlands of New Guinea. Theirs was a society with a life-style beyond Rousseau’s imagination: a highly complex structure with rules as strict as any found in the West. Often thought of as a belligerent, warring people, they had never sunk to the barbarity of Europeans. For instance, they settle many of the their disputes by shaming their enemies, presenting them with gifts they cannot afford to reciprocate”.

“Industrialised nations are performing a slow genocide on the peoples of the world by the eviction of peasants from their land, the urbanisation of society and the imposition of a uniform consumer culture”

Philip Jones Griffiths

“This Eden, like all others, was doomed by the arrival of “civilising” foreigners with their baggage of bourgeois morality – Christian missionaries leading the way with their cult of death. (Nevertheless, I once met a sceptical chief who explained that the communion bread and wine given him were definitely no one’s flesh and blood. He declared that, while the missionaries might be deceived, he could tell the difference).”

Philip Jones Griffiths