Do you know Papua?

If I did not have opportunity to work in Papua, maybe the thing I know about this island only honai. 

But thanks God, although only two years, I got in touched with them up close and personal. So here they are the facts I know about Papua

• In Papua there are about 300s tribes and language. Briefly they are low land Papuans (usually already mingled with other cultures hundred years such as Arabic, Chinese, Tidore, Ternate, Javanese, Menado etc) and high lands- Papuans lives at 'Pegunungan Tengah' 

burnt stone ceremony

• Sago palm is 'tree of life' for Asmat tribe. Many tribal wars were fought in the past over sago rights. Without it, they have no food ('papeda'), shelter (Roof), or clothing. Even they use it for trading or purchasing a bride

• Momena tribes meals are made from sago wrapped in banana leaf, cooked in the smouldering coals of the family fire, and put wild fungi, small insects or lizard in the sago

•  'Hunila' is a hut for women cooking the foot and where all the women live in

• Some people still believe to protect their self from 'marauding' (evil) spirit, they put a piece of lime under their pillow or put it in pocket

• A downward-pointing boar's tusk, worn by a Dani's warrior (put on his nose) signals he is on the warpath. An upturned tusk put one at ease, as symbol of peace

•  Papuan women, just like Balinese, toils from dawn to dusk, gathering firewood & edible greens, collecting salt, rearing pigs and children, and tending the sweet potato gardens. Their basic diet is the sweet potato, cucumber, vine leaves, peanuts & ginger root. They eat meat only at the marriage ceremony, coz at that special occasion they are allowed to partake meat (pork)

Amungme (highland Papuans) with Noken (bag)

• 'Noken' is a carrying net (kind of bag) with fibres from Aquilaria bush, usually put at their had (not at their shoulder)

•  Papuan women wear sway like rhumba dancers called 'Thali' (grass skirt) and change it when married for a cage-confining skirt of white, red and yellow orchid fibre which is braided by the males of the family and wound tightly around her hips by the village women

•  Cut finger not happen on yakuza, in Papua, if one of their beloved person died (parents or husband), the sons/ daughter/ wife will cut all their hands' fingers as the expression of losing/ sad. I have Amungme colleague lived in same room with me whose mother was cut his finger after her father passed away. 

• Polygamy already known thousands years ago in Papuan as neolithic tribe who still exist in this earth (but I wonder why western people always relate that word to muslim lol). A wife is forbidden to have sex when she pregnant until her baby age 3 years, in that absence, her husband has right to have another wife.  

• The burnt stone  ceremony in Papua, is held to get united with their ancestors  'Tabhe' (white stone) & 'Hesage' (Beauty), which is believed come from the big rock. They burned the stone, put some pigs and cover the stone with leaves. These stones smeared with lard to calm down the spirits of their ancestors 

So do you know about Papua now?

#Papua