The late Dr O.W. Hampton, known to all as ‘Bud’, was a retired geologist from Colorado. In the early 1980s he visited the Baliem Valley in Papua, which at that time was just becoming more accessible to visitors. Over the following decade he documented most of the pre-contact material culture of the Valley, including some of the last stone tools to be manufactured and used in daily life anywhere on our planet. He gained the trust of the ‘big men’ who ruled the Valley, and investigated the mysteries of the men’s houses, sacred stones, war rituals, and assembled a unique collection of artifacts. This talk describes his work and shares images of these fascinating objects.
Christopher Buckley is a researcher working for Tracing Patterns Foundation in Berkeley, California. He specializes in the material culture of the Asia Pacific region, and he is the author of books on Tibetan furniture and crafts, and the weaving traditions of Asia.