Blood group genetic variations in inhabitants of West New Guinea, with a map of the villages and linguistic groups of South West New Guinea.

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AbstractThe paper reports the blood group genetic variations found in 1479 individuals, mainly of 17 cultural and linguistic groups, in the ABO, MNS and Rh blood group system. The blood samples consisted of 913 from groups in the south, 422 from the Central Highlands region, and 144 from the northeastern part of the country near Lake Sentani and the Cyclops Mountains.The results of all surveys in West New Guinea in which the ABO, MNS and Rh blood groups were determined have been tabulated.Wide variations in gene frequencies were found for A, B, n, S, R1 and R2. No example of subgroup A2 was detected. Remarkably high values for A of 0.36 and 0.41 were found in the Sarmi and Wakde of the northern area. The frequency of B reached an unusually high value of 0.3938 in the Mulia region of the Western Dani (central area), while in other Dani populations B values were also relatively high. In the Sarmi region in the north B was 0.335 in the Baudji and 0.02 in the Wakde.The n frequencies were all high with values reaching 0.97–0.98 in southern, central and northern areas. S of MNS varied from 0 to 50% in phenotype values; however, in the central area and in parts of the northern area the S gene was absent, or present only in very low values. The genotype mS was found in Samarckema and in Pionier‐Bivak natives of the Mamberamo region (northern area).Values for R1 reached 0.996 in Asmat (southern area), 0.980 in Dani, Baliem Valley, Pyramid (central area), 0.98 in Martewar, Ferkami, Teba and 0.99 in Takar and Mamberamo (northern area). The phenotype RH0 was found only twice, and then in Sentani (northern area). The gene Rz was detected in three southern series, in two central series, and in two northern series. Rh0(Du) variants of “high‐grade” and “low‐grade” were found in northern and in southern series.Possible reasons for the wide gene frequency variations found in the same linguistic group, in different groups in the same area, and in all the indigenous peoples of the southern, central and northern areas are discussed.A comprehensive map of South West New Guinea showing all linguistic groups and the sites in 1963 of all villages is appended to the paper. This map covers one of the areas whose blood groups are reported in the paper, but includes many more villages and linguistic groups than those from which bleedings were obtained.