Keraki - History and Cultural Relations

Owing to its sparse and scattered population, inhospitable climate, and apparent lack of potential for development, the Morehead area was little affected by European contact in the 1920s and 1930s when F. E. Williams conducted his basic ethnographic research. Even today, the region is somewhat isolated, with very little economic development. Cultural Relations and communications among groups are hampered by flooding of the area in the wet season, lack of water in the dry season, and, in the precontact and early-contact era, by the constant raiding of powerful headhunters from across the border to the west.