Each people of the world has its own characteristics, which are absolutely normal and ordinary for them, but if a person of a different nationality gets into their midst, he may be very surprised at the habits and traditions of the inhabitants of this country, because they will not coincide with his own ideas about life. We invite you to find out 11 national habits and characteristics of the Papuans, some of which will horrify you.
They "sit" on nuts like drug addicts
The fruits of the betel palm tree are the most harmful habit of the Papuans! The pulp of the fruit is chewed, mixed with two other ingredients. This causes profuse salivation, and the mouth, teeth and lips turn bright red. Therefore, the Papuans endlessly spit on the ground, and "bloody" blots are found everywhere. In West Papua, these fruits are called pinang, and in the eastern half of the island - betelnat (betel nut). The use of fruits gives a slight relaxing effect, but it spoils the teeth very much.
They believe in black magic and punish for it
Previously, cannibalism was an instrument of justice, not a way to satisfy one's hunger. So the Papuans were punished for witchcraft. If a person was found guilty of using black magic and harming others, then he was killed, and pieces of his body were distributed among clan members. Today, cannibalism is no longer practiced, but murders on charges of black magic have not stopped.
They keep the dead at home
If we have Lenin "sleeping" in the mausoleum, then the Papuans from the Dani tribe keep the mummies of their leaders right in their huts. Twisted, smoked, with terrible grimaces. The mummies are 200–300 years old.
They let their women do hard physical labor
When I first saw a woman in her seventh or eighth month of pregnancy chopping wood with an ax while her husband was resting in the shade, I was shocked. Later I realized that this is the norm among the Papuans. Therefore, women in their villages are brutal and physically hardy.
They pay for their future wife with pigs
This custom has been preserved throughout New Guinea. The bride's family receives pigs before the wedding. This is a mandatory fee. At the same time, women take care of the piglets like children and even feed them with their breasts. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay wrote about this in his notes.
Their women mutilated themselves voluntarily
In the event of the death of a close relative, the Dani women cut off the phalanges of their fingers. Stone axe. Today, this custom has already been abandoned, but in the Baliem Valley you can still meet fingerless grandmothers.
Dog teeth necklace is the best gift for your wife!
For the Korowai tribe, this is a real treasure. Therefore, Korovai women do not need gold, pearls, fur coats, or money. They have very different values.
Men and women live separately
Many Papuan tribes practice this custom. Therefore, there are male huts and female ones. Women are not allowed to enter the men's house.
They can even live in trees
“I live high - I look far. Korowai build their houses in the crowns of tall trees. Sometimes it is 30 m above the ground! Therefore, an eye and an eye are needed here for children and babies, because there are no fences in such a house.
They wear kitties
This is a phallocript, with which the highlanders cover their manhood. Koteka is used in place of shorts, banana leaves, or loincloths. It is made from local gourds.
They are ready to take revenge to the last drop of blood. Or until the last chicken
Tooth for tooth, eye for eye. They practice blood feuds. If your relative was harmed, maimed or killed, then you must answer the offender in kind. Did you break your brother's hand? Break and you to the one who did it. It's good that you can buy off blood feuds with chickens and pigs. So one day I went with the Papuans to the "strelka". We got into a pickup truck, took a whole chicken coop and went to the showdown. Everything went off without bloodshed.
New Guinea is called the "island of the Papuans". Translated from Indonesian papu-va —"curly".
The Papuan tribes are indeed dark-haired and curly.
The island is drowning in tropical forests; It's hot and humid, with rain almost every day.
In such a climate, it is better to stay high from the muddy and wet ground.
Therefore, in New Guinea there are almost no dwellings standing on the ground: they are usually raised on piles and can even stand above the water.
The size of the house depends on how many people will live in it: one family or a whole village. For the village build houses up to 200 meters long.
The most common type of building is a rectangular house with a gable roof.
Piles usually raise the house two to four meters above the ground, and the tribe kombaev generally prefers a height of 30 meters. Only there, probably, they feel safe.
All Papuan houses are built without nails, saws and hammers, with the help of a stone ax, which is masterfully wielded.
Building a pile house requires good technical skills and knowledge.
Longitudinal logs are laid on the piles, transverse beams on them, and thin poles on top.
You can get into the house along a log with notches: first, into a kind of front hall, more like a “veranda”. Behind it is a living room, separated by a bark partition.
They do not make windows, the light penetrates from everywhere: both through the entrance and through cracks in the floor and walls. The roof is covered with sago palm leaves.
all pictures are clickable
The most amazing dwelling of Papuan owls is a tree house. This is a real technical masterpiece. Usually it is built on a large tree with a fork at a height of 6-7 meters. The fork is used as the main support of the house and a horizontal rectangular frame is tied to it - this is the foundation and at the same time the floor of the house.
Frame posts are attached to the frame. The calculation here must be extremely accurate so that the tree can withstand this design.
The lower platform is made from the bark of a sago palm tree, the upper platform is made from planks of a kentian palm tree; the roof is covered with palm trees
leaves, instead of the walls of the mat. A kitchen is arranged on the lower platform, and simple home belongings are also stored here. (from the book "Dwellings of the peoples of the world" 2002)
Evil, wild and eating their own kind - these are perhaps the main characteristics that are used to describe the tribal inhabitants of Papua New Guinea. However, in reality, everything is somewhat different - rumors about cruelty and cannibalism that flourish on these islands are clearly greatly exaggerated. At the very least, tourists who dare to get personally acquainted with the culture of the Papuans claim that the local natives are quite friendly, although at first they seem very harsh and gloomy. By the way, Miklukho-Maclay, a Russian ethnographer-traveler who lived with wild tribes for more than one year, wrote about this in his diary. The scientist almost immediately revealed the innocence of these people, describing his first appearance on the island as follows: "With the exception of two or three scratches, no one dared to inflict a serious wound on me." I must say that since then (and it was in 1870), the Papuans have not lost their kindness of heart and are still ready to peacefully talk, unless you encroach on their lands, women and ... pigs.
Stone XXI century
Over the past centuries, not only the psychological portrait of savages, but also the whole structure of their existence has changed little. Ethnographers, who have carefully studied the Papuan world, agreed that many tribes still retained signs of the Stone Age system in their daily lives. Most of the Papuans, being far from progress and the Great World, live exactly the same way as their ancestors lived. Yes, of course, some signs of the modern world did penetrate the islands (instead of feathers and palm leaves, the natives now dress in fabrics), but in general, the way of life remains the same as many centuries ago.
However, it would be an absolute lie to say that with the appearance of white people on these lands, the life of the Papuans has not changed in any way. Since the Europeans created the mining industry and developed tourism in the country, some of the indigenous people left their tribal communities and are engaged in transporting guests, developing deposits, servicing shops, and so on. Today we can already say that a layer of entrepreneurs and farmers is being formed in Guinea. And many traditions and rituals either disappeared without a trace or turned into tourist attractions.
Plans of the tribe - in life!
Like many years ago, the main share of the Papuan population lives in a communal-tribal system. Within a single tribe, as in the Stone Age, there is no place for private property, monogamous relationships, class gradation and state laws. All major work, whether it is harvesting or war with a neighboring tribe, the community does together. All disputes are resolved together, holidays are celebrated, magical rites are performed. Even seemingly purely personal issues such as choosing a bride or the time of marriage are also resolved jointly.
Papuans live mainly due to manual farming, gathering, and much less often - hunting. With the advent of Europeans, pig breeding began to play an important role in the functioning of the tribe, although meat is eaten very rarely here, for reasons of economy, replacing it with sweet potato, coconut and bananas.
The tribe itself is an association of large families, moreover, the understanding of a “big family” here is very different from the European one and sometimes has about 30-40 people. Remarkably, the basis of the cell of a wild society is women, numerous wives of one man, the head of the family.
Who is the head in this house?
Well, what a tribe without a leader! It is very easy to recognize him: a concentrated face, a brutal look, a piercing look. His opinion is authoritative and rarely subject to appeal. Moreover, even when the leader dies, his fellow tribesmen come to his body wrapped in palm leaves for a long time, eager to receive a piece of the wisdom of the leader who left the world.
The tribal ruler of Papua not only commands the community, but also heals it, for he is also a shaman and healer. Only the leader knows what disease and how to treat and how to properly circumcise the boys - a mandatory procedure for the dedication of youths to men. In addition, the leader sterilizes the women of the tribe if she gave birth to two or more children. Alas, the habitat of the tribe is very limited, the community does not have the right to move from its familiar place, so the birth rate in families is strictly controlled.
Men rule the world
Someone will say that today in Papua they do not take into account the rights of women at all, but history shows that in the past the situation looked much less personal. Not so long ago, in all Papuan tribes (and in some - still) there were so-called men's houses. Only adult representatives of the stronger sex (those who are polygamists!), and women were strictly forbidden to enter it. And, really, it is not good for a woman to distract men from important thoughts and conversations. And things in the Men's House were really discussed important. The Council decided what price should be offered for the bride, which of the families of the tribe needed an increase in living space, how to divide the harvest, and which of the warriors was worthy to go hunting.
Which of the young women of the tribe and, more importantly, who needed to marry, was also decided by the Men's House. At the same time, the feelings of the unfortunate, of course, were not taken into account. And since it was impossible to marry young people from the same tribe (this was equated with incest), a very unenviable fate awaited the young lady. However, the position of a young woman in the tribe has always had a temporary status. They lived in their community only until marriage, after which they moved to the tribe of their spouse. Despite joint activities, the barrier between the couple remains throughout life: he lives in the Men's House, she - in the women's hut, he owns his property, she owns hers. So the spiritual unity of a couple in love in Papua New Guinea does not even smell!
wall to wall
The customs and traditions of the Papuan tribes are very different, and therefore the rituals of each other are completely incomprehensible to them. It's no joke: there are about 700 languages on these islands alone. So things are not very good with mutual understanding here, and when it is necessary to resolve mutual issues of ownership of land, women and pigs, the Papuans take up the hatchet. Fighting here is not only a way to settle a dispute, but also a matter of honor for every man.
There are several such inter-tribal armed clashes every year. The basis for declaring serious war is theft or murder. For the injured Papuan, as tradition dictates, the whole tribe stands up, but the community of the villain also does not remain in debt. Most often, traditional weapons are used: bows, arrows, axes and spears, but recently the Papuans have also begun to resort to firearms. If the leaders of the warring tribes fail to agree peacefully, hostilities can continue for months, or even years.
Dance War
And yet the Papuans do not always howl with knives! In August, the islands host fights of a completely different nature - dance fights. At this time, at the foot of one of the highest mountains - Mount Wilhelm - about a hundred tribes from all over Papua New Guinea gather to compete in dance skills at the traditional Sing Sing festival dedicated to the country's Independence Day.
It may seem to some that this festival of drums, costumes, songs and dances is nothing more than a tourist ploy, but the roots of this event go back to the Stone Age. The distant ancestors of the Papuans held something similar in honor of the victory over the neighboring community or in honor of the truce (all with the same neighboring tribe). In the 50s of the twentieth century, the festival received the status of an official holiday and was held to bring the warring communities together. While the ordinary members of the tribe danced and collectively ate watermelons, the leaders reached important agreements. The material benefits of the festival, when tourists began to come to the dance duel, became only an additional bonus.
The Papuans start preparing for the event from the very early morning. There is a lot of work to be done: everyone needs to be painted in their “signature” colors, dressed up in palm leaves, bird feathers, beads made of fangs and dog bones, and distribute dance parts. All forces are rushed to tell the audience in the most intelligible way in crazy dances and chants about the traditions, rituals and structure of their tribe. Tourists from all over the world come to see this colorful show. And there is a reason for this: this holiday is considered the largest gathering of native tribes in the world.
April 27th, 2015It is very logical to start the story about our trip to Papuas with a story about the Papuans themselves.
There would be no Papuans - and half of the problems in the campaign to the Carstensz Pyramid would not exist either. But there wouldn't be half of the charm and exoticism.
In general, it's hard to say whether it would be better or worse ... And why not. At least now - so far there is no escape from the Papuans on an expedition to the Carstensz Pyramid.
So, our Carstensz expedition 2015 started like all similar expeditions: Bali airport - Timika airport.
A bunch of trunks, a sleepless night. Futile attempts to somehow sleep on the plane.
Timika is still a civilization, but already Papua. You understand this from the very first steps. Or from the first announcements in the toilet.
But our path lies even further. From Timiki we need to fly on a small charter plane to the village of Sugapa. Previously, expeditions went from the village of Ilaga. The path there is easier, a little shorter. But for the past three years, the so-called separatists have settled in Ilaga. Therefore, expeditions start from Sugapa.
Roughly speaking, Papua is a region occupied by Indonesia. Papuans do not consider themselves Indonesians. The government used to pay them money. Just. Because they are Papuans. For the last fifteen years they have stopped paying money. But Papuans are used to having (relatively) white people give them money.
Now this "should give" is displayed mainly on tourists.
Not so cheerful after a night flight, we moved with all our belongings to a house next to the airport - from where small planes take off.
This moment can be considered the starting point of the expedition. All certainties end. Nobody ever gives accurate information. Everything can happen in five minutes, or in two hours, or in a day.
And you can do nothing, nothing depends on you.
Nothing teaches patience and humility like the road to Carstensz.
Three hours of waiting, and we move towards the plane.
And here they are - the first real Papuans, waiting to fly to their villages.
They don't like being photographed. And in general, the arrival of a crowd of strangers does not cause them any positive emotions.
Well, okay, we are not up to them yet. We have more important things to do.
First, our luggage is weighed, and then all of us with hand luggage. Yes, yes, this is not a joke. In a small plane, weight goes into kilograms, so the weight of each passenger is carefully recorded.
On the way back, when weighing, the live weight of the participants in the event decreased significantly. Yes, and the weight of the luggage too.
Weighed in, checked out our luggage. And wait again. This time in the best airport hotel - Papua Holiday. At least nowhere is it so sweet to sleep as there.
The command "time to land" pulls us out of sweet dreams.
Here is our white-winged bird, ready to take it to the magical land of Papuasia.
Half an hour of flight, and we find ourselves in another world. Everything here is unusual, and somehow extreme.
Starting from a super short runway.
And ending with the suddenly running Papuans.
We were already waiting.
Gang of Indonesian bikers. They were supposed to take us to the last village.
And Papuans. A lot of Papuans. Which had to decide whether to let us in at all to this village.
They quickly picked up our bags, dragged us aside and began to debate.
The women sat separately. Closer to us. Laugh, chat. Even a little flirt.
The men in the distance were busy with serious business.
Well, finally I came to the mores and customs of the Papuans.
Patriarchy reigns in Papuas.
Polygamy is accepted here. Almost every man has two or three wives. The wives have five, six, seven children.
Next time I will show the Papuan village, houses and how they all live there in such a big cheerful crowd
So. Let's get back to families.
Men are engaged in hunting, protecting the house and solving important issues.
Everything else is done by women.
Hunting doesn't happen every day. The house is also not particularly protected from anyone.
Therefore, a typical day for a man goes like this: waking up, he drinks a cup of tea or coffee or cocoa and walks through the village to see what's new. Returns home for dinner. Dines. He continues his walks around the village, talking with his neighbors. Dinner in the evening. Then, judging by the number of children in the villages, he is engaged in solving demographic problems, and goes to bed in order to continue his difficult everyday life in the morning.
The woman wakes up early in the morning. Prepares tea, coffee and other breakfast items. And then he takes care of the house, children, garden and other nonsense. All day from morning to evening.
Indonesian guys told me all this in response to my question: why do men carry almost nothing, and women carry heavy bags.
Men are simply not fit for hard daily work. As in a joke: war will come, and I'm tired ...
So. Our Papuans started discussing whether to let us through Sugapa or not. If allowed, then under what conditions.
Actually, it's all about the conditions.
Time passed, negotiations dragged on.
Everything was ready for the expedition. Boots, umbrellas, weapons and other necessities.
A couple of hours passed in conversation.
And suddenly a new team: on motorcycles! Hooray, the first stage is over!
Do you think that's all? No. This is just the beginning.
The elders of the village, two military men, two policemen, and sympathetic Papuans set out with us.
Why so many?
To resolve emerging issues.
Questions arose almost immediately.
As I already wrote, somewhere since the seventies, the Indonesian government paid money to the Papuans. Just. All you had to do was to come to the bank once a month, stand in line and get a bunch of money.
Then they stopped giving money. But the feeling that money should be just like that, remained.
A way to get money was found quickly enough. Literally with the arrival of the first tourists.
This is how the favorite pastime of the Papuans appeared - the kind of blocks.
A stick is placed in the middle of the road. And you can't cross it.
What happens if you step over the stick?
According to the Indonesian guys - they can throw stones, they can do something else, in general, please don't.
This is bewildering. Well, they won't kill...
Why not?
Human life is worth nothing here. Formally, Indonesian laws apply on the territory of Papua. In fact, local laws take precedence.
According to them, if you killed a person, it is enough, in agreement with the relatives of the victim, to pay a small fine.
There is a suspicion that for the murder of a white stranger, not only will they not be fined, they will also receive gratitude.
The Papuans themselves are quick-tempered. They quickly move away, but at the first moment in anger they do not control themselves much.
We saw how they chased their wives with a machete.
Handshaking is in the order of things. At the end of the journey, the wives who set off on the journey with their husbands were covered with bruises.
So, they will throw stones or shoot from a bow in the back - no one wanted to experiment.
Therefore, negotiations began at each stick laid on the ground.
At first it looks like a theatrical performance.
Ridiculously dressed up people in shorts and T-shirts, decorated with colored plastic beads and feathers, stand in the middle of the road and begin to make a fiery speech.
Speeches are delivered exclusively by men.
They perform one at a time. They speak loudly, loudly. In the most dramatic moments, throwing hats on the ground.
Women sometimes get into a fight. But somehow always in chorus, creating an unimaginable hubbub.
The discussion flares up, then subsides.
The negotiators stop speaking and disperse in different directions to sit and think.
If you translate the dialogue into Russian, it would look something like this:
- We won't let these white people through our village.
- You should skip these nice people - these are already paid elders of other tribes.
- All right, but let them pay us, and take our women as porters.
Of course they will pay you. And we will decide about porters tomorrow.
- Agreed. Give us five million
- Yes, you are crazy
And then the bargaining begins ... And again hats fly to the ground and women scream.
The guys who see it all for the first time, quietly go nuts. And they say quite sincerely: "Are you sure you didn't pay them for this performance?"
Too bad it doesn't look real.
And most importantly, the locals, especially the kids, perceive it all as a theatrical show.
They sit and stare.
Half an hour passes, an hour, in the worst case - two hours. The negotiators reach the generally accepted sum of one million Indonesian tugriks. The stick moves away and our cavalcade rushes on.
The first time is even funny. The second one is still interesting.
Third, fourth - and now it all starts to strain a little.
From Sugapa to Suangama - the ultimate goal of our trip - 20 kilometers. It took us more than seven hours to overcome them.
There were six road blocks in total.
It was evening. Everyone is already soaked in the rain. It was starting to get dark and it was downright cold.
And here, from my valiant team, more and more insistent proposals began to come in to switch to commodity-money relations and pay the Papuans the money they want, so that they let us through as quickly as possible.
And I tried to explain that everything. These very commodity-money relations do not work.
All laws ended somewhere in the Timiki region.
You can pay once. But the next time (and we'll have to go back) they will be asked to pay much more. And there will be not six but sixteen blocks.
Such is the logic of the Papuans.
Somewhere at the beginning of the trip, they asked me in bewilderment: "Well, they hired us to work, they must fulfill their obligations." And those words made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
The Papuans have no concept of "obligation". Today one mood, tomorrow another ... And in general, the Papuans are somehow tense with the concept of morality. That is, it is completely absent.
We overcame the last block already in the dark.
The protracted negotiations began to strain not only us. Motorcyclists actively began to hint that they need to return to Sugapa. With or without us.
As a result, in the dark on a mountain road in the rain on motorcycles without headlights, we got to the last village in front of the jungle - Suangami.
The next day there was another show called Porters Get Hired on an Expedition. And how this happens, why this cannot be avoided and how it all ends, I will tell you next time.
Despite the fact that outside the window is the fast-paced XXI century, which is called the century of information technology, here in the distant country of Papua New Guinea, time seems to have stopped.
State of Papua New Guinea
The state is located in Oceania, on several islands. The total area is about 500 square kilometers. Population 8 million people The capital is the city of Port Moresby. The head of state is the Queen of Great Britain.
The name "Papua" is translated as "curly". So the island was named in 1526 by a navigator from Portugal - the governor of one of the islands of Indonesia, Jorge de Menezes. After 19 years, the Spaniard, one of the first explorers of the Pacific Islands, Iñigo Ortiz de Retes, visited the island and called it "New Guinea".
Official language of Papua New Guinea
Tok Pisin is recognized as the official language. It is spoken by the majority of the population. And also English, although only one person out of a hundred knows it. Basically, these are government officials. An interesting feature: there are more than 800 dialects in the country and therefore Papua New Guinea is recognized as the country with the largest number of languages (10% of all languages in the world). The reason for this phenomenon is the almost complete absence of ties between the tribes.
Tribes and families in New Guinea
Papuan families still live in a tribal regime. A separate “cell of society” is simply not able to survive without contact with its tribe. This is especially true of life in cities, of which there are quite a lot in the country. However, here a city is considered to be any settlement with a population of more than a thousand people.
Papuan families unite in tribes and live next to other urban people. Usually children do not attend schools located in cities. But even those who go to study very often return home after one or two years of study. It is also worth noting that girls do not study at all. Since the girl helps her mother with the housework until the moment she is married.
The boy returns to his family to become one of the equal members of his tribe - a "crocodile". That's what men are called. Their skin should be similar to the skin of a crocodile. Young men undergo initialization and only then have the right to communicate on an equal footing with the rest of the men of the tribe, they have the right to vote at a meeting or other event taking place in the tribe.
The tribe lives as one big family, supports and helps each other. But he usually does not contact with a neighboring tribe or even openly feuds. Recently, the Papuans have cut their territory quite strongly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to maintain the former order of life in nature in natural conditions, their millennial traditions and their unique culture.
Families in Papua New Guinea have 30-40 people each. The women of the tribe run the household, take care of livestock, give birth to children, collect bananas and coconuts, and cook food.
Papuan food
Not only fruits are the main food of the Papuans. Pork is used for cooking. Pigs in the tribe are protected and their meat is eaten very rarely, only on holidays and memorable dates. More often they eat small rodents that live in the jungle and banana leaves. All dishes from these ingredients, women know how to cook amazingly delicious.
Marriage and family life in New Guinea
Women have practically no rights, obeying first to their parents, and then entirely to their husband. By law (in the country the majority of the inhabitants are Christians), the husband is obliged to treat his wife well. But in reality this is far from the case. The practice of ritual murders of women remains, on which at least a shadow of suspicion of witchcraft falls. According to statistics, more than 60% of women are constantly exposed to domestic violence. International public organizations and the Catholic Church are constantly sounding the alarm on this issue.
But, unfortunately, everything remains the same. A girl at the age of 11-12 is already being married off. At the same time, parents lose “another mouth”, as a younger girl becomes an assistant. And the groom's family acquires free labor, so they look closely at all the girls of six to eight years old. Often a man can become a groom 20-30 years older than a girl. But there is no choice. Therefore, each of them resignedly accepts her fate for granted.
But a man does not himself choose his future wife, whom he can only see before the traditional wedding ceremony. The choice of bride will be decided by the tribal elders. Before the wedding, it is customary to send matchmakers to the bride's family and bring a gift. Only after such a rite is the wedding day appointed. On this day, the ritual of "abduction" of the bride takes place. A worthy ransom must be paid into the bride's house. It can be not only various valuable things, but also, for example, wild boars, banana branches, vegetables and fruits. When the bride is given to another tribe or another house, her property is divided among the members of the community from which this girl comes.
Life in marriage is not easy. According to ancient traditions, a woman lives separately from a man. In the tribe there are so-called women's and men's houses. Adultery, on either side, can be punished very severely. There are also special huts where the husband and wife can retire from time to time. They can retire in the forest. Girls are brought up by mothers, and boys from the age of seven are men of the tribe. Children in the tribe are considered common, they are not particularly on ceremony with them. Among the Papuans you will not find such a disease as overprotection.
Here is such a difficult family life for the Papuans.
witchcraft law
In 1971, the country passed the Law on Witchcraft. It says that a person who considers himself "bewitched" is not responsible for his actions. The murder of a sorcerer is a mitigating circumstance in legal proceedings. Very often, women from another tribe are the victims of the accusation. Four years ago, a gang of cannibals who called themselves witch hunters killed men and women and then ate them. The government is trying to fight this terrible phenomenon. Perhaps the law on witchcraft will finally be repealed.
