This paper is an attempt to discover why the native reaction to the whites should be so different in the highlands when compared to the rest of New Guinea. We must presume that in the pre-white situation there was something in the highland ideology which was particularly amenable to the adoption of capitalistic activities. The main thesis of this paper is that it was the ideological differences concerning leadership qualifications of the highland "big men" and the "big men" of the seaboard areas which caused the differences in their acceptance of Western ideology.