The following is copied from the back cover of Peter Matthiessen ’s book '' Under the Mountain Wall '' : In the Baliem Valley in Central New Guinea live the Kurelu , a Stone Age tribe that survived into the twentieth century . Peter Matthiessen visited the Kurelu with the Harvard-Peabody Expedition in 1961 and wrote '' Under the Mountain Wall '' as an account not of the expedition , but of the great warrior Weaklekek , the swineherd Tukum , U-mue and his family , and the boy Weake , killed in a surprise raid . Matthiessen observes these people in their timeless rhythm of work and play and war , of gardening and wood gathering , feasts and funerals , pig stealing and ambush . The valley was the site of the Gremlin Special airplane crash in 1945 , which received a great deal of publicity at the time . In 2011 , a book about the crash and rescue entitled '' Lost in Shangri-La '' was published
Gremlin Special
1945 New Guinea Gremlin Special rescue
Baliem Valley