Two men from Papua New Guinea have accused Jared Diamond and the New Yorker of defaming them in an article published last year about clan violence entitled “Vengenance is Ours.”

Diamond, a geographer at the University of California in Los Angeles and author of prize-winning popular books, wrote that his source, Hup Daniel Wemp, provoked a long-lasting blood feud in New Guinea’s highland region according to StinkyJournalism.org, a media criticism project of the Art Science Research Laboratory.

Rhonda Roland Shearer, co-founder of the project with her late husband Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist and popular science writer, accuses Diamond and the New Yorker of misrepresenting Wemp and his rival, Henep Isum Mandingo, who is the other plaintiff in the summons. She and her co-authors claim that many quotes attributed to Wemp in the New Yorker article were likely fabricated because of their linguistic sophistication and that claims that the feud put Mandingo in a wheelchair are mistaken.

Diamond did not respond to requests from the Chronicle of Higher Education for comment this week.

A friend of Wemp’s told Forbes:

Daniel’s stories were not serious narrative, and Daniel had no idea he was being interviewed for publication. He has never killed anyone or raped a woman. He certainly has never stolen a pig.

Photo: Courtesy StinkyJournalism.org