They released me later after checking me thoroughly. Maybe they thought I was from Iraq due to my skin complexion, long beard and highlands cap. America was at war and security was tight.

I firmly grabbed Dr Momis’s hands as soon as I spotted him and spent an hour with the two leaders taking pictures, buying souvenirs and sharing soft drinks. Back home, I would have kept my distance but here it seemed I had known them for years.

When Dr Momis learned I was from Enga he asked, “Do you know Dr Paul Brennan?” “Not personally,” I said, “but I know he started the Enga Cultural Centre.”

“You might as well take his number with you, you never know” Dr Momis said. “He is working here in Honolulu.”

I jotted the details on a small notepad and we said farewell as I left for Los Angeles and on to Washington.

The lady who came to pick me up, Susan Talalay, asked me if I’d seen Rev Jesse Jackson who was among the first passengers to pass through the gate.

I told her I had. “The reverend sat opposite me on the shuttle bus. I could have reached out and touched him.

“He recently visited Goroka close to my province in Papua New Guinea,” I added.

Susan was not sure if Rev Jesse Jackson would run again in the US presidential election due the following year but that did not concern me. I was satisfied I’d seen this popular black man at close quarters.

Later, I also saw then Russian president Boris Yeltsin a few feet away when he came for a state visit to Washington 20. And talking of brushes with fame, back in 1989, I had seen Queen Elizabeth II at a London hospital where she came to visit one of her bubus after an infant was born.

It may seem absurd to mention sightings of world leaders but for me, coming from an isolated part of PNG and having read so much about these popular figures, seeing them live at close quarters were experiences I won’t forget - especially Rev Jesse Jackson.

He’d looked at me closely and our eyes met but we just couldn’t open our mouths to say something. His darting eyes sensed that he must have seen people like me somewhere. I am sure we could have talked but the distance from the plane to the terminal building was short. By the time I went for my luggage, he had disappeared.

The history of African Americans in the US is recorded and exhibited in the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Centre at Wilberforce near Dayton, Ohio.

African Americans recognise the museum as a national treasure – one that gives them deep meaning. One of the aims of the centre is to encourage an appreciation and understanding of the rich experiences of African Americans.

It serves as a national repository for objects, documents and other material of continuing historical and cultural merit, which reflects the traditions, values, social customs and experiences of African Americans.

And this is where Dr Paul Brennan steps in, the anthropologist John Momis referred me to in Honolulu. Dr Brennan was asked to organise an exhibition of PNG artefacts – most of them from Enga Province – and I had called him.

I received a letter from Dr Brennan. I was blown away when it began in the Enga language with ‘Dear kaita miningi (friend) and ended with ‘emba auu pyoo katape, kaita miningi (stay well my friend).

The letter continued: “I was both surprised and thrilled to receive your telephone call last week, informing me of your presence in the US, and especially in the state in which I was born and spent my childhood.”

So we met and stayed in his brother’s house in Dayton. Dr Brennan had spent his youth in Ohio and had earned four degrees eventually, inspired by Malinowski’s earlier field work, refining his area of interest as Melanesia.

In 1968, Dr Brennan and his wife had been given the opportunity to work in Enga as staff linguist and anthropologist by the Lutheran Church, even though they were not Lutherans. They spent 10 of their 13 PNG years in Enga, conducting research, teaching the language and assisting in development projects.

“I recognised the need for establishing a museum and cultural centre,” he told me, “and began collecting material for that purpose.”

He also collected some artefacts for his own private collection, which I was going to see.

“It will be very satisfying to show someone from Enga-land the exhibit,” Dr Brennan said as we drove to the museum.

While much research remains to be done, enough evidence has been gathered to suggest that thousands of years ago during the last Pleistocene Age Papua New Guineans emerged having crossed land bridges from Indochina. People have been living on the island of New Guinea for more than 25,000 years.

The exhibit attracted the attention of black Americans with the words: “Like some of you, we too are black. Like you, our roots are rich and deep. We are your distant cousins, sharing a common African heritage but now scattered in different parts of the world.”

“Maybe black Americans have appreciated the display more than others,” said Dr Brennan. “One little girl asked me if Engans see themselves as black people. I thought that was provoking. I told her, Engans are black.”

Even though it was not part of his job description, Dr Brennan continued to collect the artefacts of Enga and study their traditional lifestyle, though some of his colleagues rebuked him.

“Some missionaries suggested to me to forget about it because it’s heathenish,” he said.

“I didn’t think so. It had historical value. I had to think of them and their past. Who are they? Where did they come from? I never felt it was wasted effort.”

So Dr Brennan continued his research and collected as many artefacts as possible before the people burned them at the order of missionaries. The museum he built in Wabag houses one of the largest collections of stone axes in PNG. And he had taken some of the artefacts to America where they were now on display.

“How do you feel seeing artefacts from your country on display here? Do you feel them taken away from you?” Dr Brennan surprised me with the question.

‘No, definitely not,” I replied. “I don’t feel that way at all. I feel proud. And I believe culture should be shared.”

This was a different kind of experience, something like a dream to have seen, smelled and touched some of the artefacts.

There were the rattling seeds the Engans used to contact the spirit world and the Yupin figure (pictured at the top of this page) that I never thought existed. Dr Brennan had saved these precious items from destruction by ruthless missionaries.

His collection was probably the largest from the Central Highlands of PNG to be found anywhere in America or Europe. Included were objects once adored as gods, digging sticks shaped like paddles, stone axes and traditional attire like aprons and purpur.

There were also exotic paintings, decorated human skulls, carvings, tapa cloth and masks and other items of striking design from all over the country.

The most arresting were the traditional weapons of warfare: elaborately carved wooden shields with artwork patterned after the human form, human-bone tipped arrows and spears, killing axes, bows and arrows that could travel for 200 feet.

There were also images of people with battle wounds, people mourning over a fallen warrior and youths undergoing initiation ceremonies. Visitors asked Brennan about the significance of tribal warfare. He said fighting was deep-rooted in the culture.

Engans saw danger everywhere, he told people – in fast flowing rivers, the rugged terrain, ancestral spirits and much else - but the real enemies were the people who lived on the other side of the ridge or the river.

A clan had to defend itself when pigs were stolen, insults were shouted, boundaries were disputed and, especially, when blood was shed.

Brennan said the main function of Enga warfare was to ensure the territorial integrity of the clan and to enhance its prestige.

“As a precondition of fighting, clans must prepare for it in a variety of ritual,” he said. “Clan brothers will gather to discuss in secret any attitudes of disunity or transgressions against each other, all aware that to enter battle without psychological unity could mean failure.”

Another ceremony, he told visitors, was designed to reveal traitorous intentions.

But in the midst of much change, many Engans did not seem interested in fighting. Even as Dr Brennan lived in Enga (1968-77), the transition from stone to steel had been rapid. And most people preferred Christianity ahead of ancestral worship.

Above all they wanted recognition as people of a growing country – and they appreciated the recognition of black people from other parts of the world.

The statement introducing the exhibition continued: “So, come wantok, brothers, speak of a common heritage. Look into our faces, see our creations. Know how we live. See us in our warfare, know us at peace…struggling like you to find stability, security. Come wantok, walk some trails with us.”