NEW YORK — Two New Guinea tribesmen have filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit claiming Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond wrote a New Yorker magazine article that falsely accused them of murder and other crimes.

Henep Isum Mandingo and Hup Daniel Wemp say in a single-page filing in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court that Diamond’s article published April 21, 2008, accused them “of serious criminal activity … including murder.”

The article was titled, “Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?”

The New Yorker spokeswoman Alexa Cassanos said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment. She added: “We stand by our story; we stand by Jared Diamond.”

An article summary on The New Yorker’s Web site says Diamond describes feuds and vengeance killings among tribes in the New Guinea highlands. In particular, he tells of a man who felt a duty to avenge an uncle’s slaying by a neighboring clan.

The tribesman is Daniel Wemp of the Handa clan. He was 22 when his uncle was killed in 1992 fighting the Ombal clan.

Diamond reports it took three years, 29 lives and the theft of 300 pigs before Wemp and his hired group exacted revenge. Because of the revenge, Wemp is now a target, Diamond reports.

Diamond says he met Wemp about half a dozen years after these events. He quotes the highlander as saying, “I admit that the New Guinea highland way to solve the problem posed by a killing isn’t good … We are always in effect living on the battlefield.”