It's easy to say "No" verbally. Words are neutral symbols which stand for a reality but do not resemble that reality.

A picture, however, often resembles reality, especially when that picture moves. This makes pictorial media enormously persuasive. It requires an act of will to disbelieve what one sees & an even greater will to accept the reverse of what one sees.

The New Guinea government circulated large posters that said: Protect Our Rare Birdwing Butterflies; and beneath this, pictures of the butterflies in question, along with the warning: "$200 fine for collecting; $20 penalty per specimen in possession thereof." Villagers immediately collected these butterflies & took them to agricultural officers for payment.

A common beer ad in New Guinea shows a foaming glass with the caption: Be Specific, Say South Pacific. When the sale of beer was permitted to indigenes, the London Missionary Society posted identical ads, except for the caption: Say No. Beer sales immediately increased. Drinkers ordered No.

The government produced a film called Stori Bilong Stilman, which showed a village youth committing five thefts. In the last, while an accomplice distracts a shopkeeper, the thief fills a bag & then the two go outside where they happily eat the pilfered food & divide the stolen money. Audiences were delighted. The thief, of course, was arrested & taken to jail, but the message was clear: stealing is fun, easy, rewarding & this is the way it's done.

I suspect crime increased wherever the film was shown. I do know that the lead actor was soon in prison, convicted of precisely the crime he played in the last scene.

There seemed to be one example, however, that contradicted this theory that one can't say "No" pictorially. It was a most effective sign, seen everywhere throughout the Territory, depicting a human hand, & meaning lmtambut, taboo, private. At first I thought it meant Do Not Touch & depicted a hand laid on, the idea being Don't Do This. But a hand is a visual pun: in outline or silhouette, palm & back are identical. These warning signs didn't show hands touching forbidden objects; they threatened trespassers. Villagers perceived them as palms thrust into the faces of intruders, like the hand of a traffic policeman.

Could this explain hands painted by Paleolithic artists on the walls of cave sanctuaries? The hand motif was also prevalent in North American Indian art, especially on masks & shields.