PJ Vogt

Kalva, I'm just going to read you my not-short introduction to this one.

I'm ready to hear it.

Okay.

On the island of Papua New Guinea, there's this small group of people called the Foray.

The Foray are a group in the tens of thousands who for years had been almost entirely uncontacted by outsiders.

They live in the remote eastern highlands, picture a dense landscape of green hills.

The Foray have few encounters with the Western world.

There's a run-in with an Australian gold prospector in the 1930s.

In the 40s, apparently one World War II fighter plane crashes near them, which must have been an insane experience.

But they're mainly left alone until the 1950s, when anthropologists start to really get curious about how the Foray live.

And as the anthropologists arrive with their questions, they learn the foray have one of their own.

The foray tell the anthropologists that their people are dying in large numbers and in this very scary way.

There's a mysterious phenomenon called kuru.

The foray think it's a curse.

The anthropologists think it's a disease.

The Western media outlets hear about it and they start calling it laughing sickness.

Kuru mostly affects children and women.

Something like only 2% of cases were found in adult males.

When you get kuru, the first stage is that you begin to walk in a wobbly way.

You struggle to pronounce some familiar words.