Captain Edward A. Salisbury was a noted millionaire explorer and writer, whose exploration stories of the islands of the South Seas Pacific appeared often in "The National Geographic," and other magazines in the early part of the 20th-century, spent 18 months exploring the New Hebrides islands where head-hunting and cannibalism was practiced by some of the natives. The footage shot by Captain Edward A. Salisbury was put together to make this film. Captain Salisbury explained that 'gow' was the native term for the practice of head-hunting, and was not the name of one of the head-hunters.

Explorer Edward Salisbury takes an expedition across the Pacific Ocean to such exotic locales as Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea and the New Hebrides Islands, and record the lives of the various natives they encounter there.

Captain Edward A. Salisbury was a noted millionaire explorer and writer, whose exploration stories of the islands of the South Seas Pacific appeared often in "The National Geographic," and other magazines in the early part of the 20th-century, spent 18 months exploring the New Hebrides islands where head-hunting and cannibalism was practiced by some of the natives. The footage shot by Captain Edward A. Salisbury was put together to make this film. Captain Salisbury explained that 'gow' was the native term for the practice of head-hunting, and was not the name of one of the head-hunters.

Though the release date says 1956, this film consists mostly of footage from a 1931 documentary called "Gow the Killer." It was the first sound film to deal with cannibalism, as it documented the social life and customs of primitive tribes that in fact did engage in cannibalism.