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Korowai people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Korowai
Kosenirowai, Kolufo
A Korowai man
Total population
4000-4400[1][2]
Regions with significant populations
Indonesia(South Papua,Highland Papua)
Languages
Korowai,Indonesian
Related ethnic groups
Kombai people

TheKorowai,also called theKolufo,are the people who live in southeasternPapuain the Indonesian provinces ofSouth PapuaandHighland Papua.Specifically their tribal area is split by the borders ofBoven Digoel Regency,Mappi Regency,Asmat Regency,andYahukimo Regency.They number about 4000 to 4400 people.[3][1][2]

According toThe Daily Telegraph,"Until the late 1970s, when anthropologists embarked on a study of the tribe, the Korowai were unaware of the existence of any peoples other than themselves".[4][better source needed]

Language[edit]

TheKorowai languagebelongs to theAwyu–Dumut family(southeastern Papua) and is part of theTrans–New Guineaphylum. A dictionary and grammar book have been produced by a Dutch missionary linguist.

Living[edit]

Tree houses built by the Korowai people inPapua,IndonesianNew Guinea.

The majority of the Korowai clans live intree houseson their isolated forested territory.[5]

Since 1980 some have moved into the recently opened villages of Yaniruma at the Becking River banks (Kombai–Korowai area), Mu, and Mbasman (Korowai–Citak area). In 1987, a village was opened in Manggél, in Yafufla (1988), Mabül at the banks of theEilanden River(1989), and Khaiflambolüp (1998).

The villageabsenteeismrate is still high, because of the relatively long distance between the settlements and the food (sago) resources.

The Korowai appear to now smoke tobacco but not to drink alcohol.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Economy[edit]

The Korowai arehunter-gatherersandhorticulturalistswho practiceshifting cultivation.They have excellent hunting and fishing skills.

Information about Korowai trade patterns is scant. The Korowai have a few gender-specific activities, such as the preparation ofsagoand the performance of religious ceremonies in which only the male adults are involved.

Some Korowai have since the early 1990s generated moderate cash income by working with tour companies selling tours into the Korowai region. Within the tourist industry, opportunities are limited to hosting tour groups in villages for tourist-sponsored sago feasts, carrying luggage, and performing traditional displays.

Kinship[edit]

Thepatriclanis the central unit with respect to social, economic, and political organization. Kinship terminology follows theOmaha Ipattern (Lounsbury), knowing a central opposition between cross and parallel relationships.

In Korowai society, the forms of institutionallevirateand predominance ofavuncularrelationships are found, as well as a kind ofaffinalavoidance relationships. Marriage isexogamousandpolygynous.Preference is given to aconjugalrelationship with the (classificatory) mother's mother's brother's daughter.

Social life[edit]

Leadership structures are based on personal qualities ofbig men,rather than on institution. Interclan warfare occurs mainly because ofwitchcraftandsorcery-related conflicts.

Religious life[edit]

The Korowai universe is filled with a variety of spirits, some more personal of character than others. Reverence is paid especially to the red headed creator god Gimigi. The Korowai ascribe an important role in their daily lives of honoring their "One God" with one being used as the concept of a prime deity from whom all others either descend or to whom all others pay homage.

Once in a lifetime, a Korowai clan must organize asago grubfestival in order to stimulate prosperity and fertility in a ritual fashion. In times of trouble they sacrificedomesticated pigsto the spirits of the ancestors.

The Korowai have an extraordinary and rich oral tradition:myths,folktales,(magical) sayings andcharms,andtotemtraditions. With respect to death and afterlife the Korowai believe in the existence of a reciprocal type ofreincarnation:those who died can be sent back at any time to the land of the living, by their kinsmen in the land of the dead, in order to reincarnate in a newly born infant of their own clan.

Contact with Westerners[edit]

The first documented contact by Western scientists with members of a band of western Korowai (or eastern Citak) took place on 17–18 March 1974. The expedition was co-led by anthropologistPeter Van Arsdale(now at theUniversity of Denver),[13]geographer Robert Mitton, and community developer Mark (Dennis) Grundhoefer. Thirty men were encountered on the south bank of the Upper Eilanden River, approximately 12 miles east of its junction with the Kolff River and 10 miles north of the Becking River. A basic word list was generated and observations were recorded regarding such things as fire making techniques.[14][15]

In the late 1970s, a few Christian (Dutch Protestant) missionaries began to live among the Korowai.[16]Dea Sudarman, an Indonesian anthropologist, made several documentary films on the Korowai for Japanese television in the 1980s. In 1993, a film crew documented an anthropological study in the Dayo village area by theSmithsonian Institutionof Korowai treehouse construction and the practice ofcannibalismas a form of criminal justice. This resulted in the filmLords of the Garden.In 1996 a local Christian community was established, the members of it mainly originating from the neighbouringKombai people.For a long time the Korowai have been considered exceptionally resistant to religious conversion; however, by the end of the 1990s the first converts to Christianity were baptized. In the autumn of 2003, a small team of Bible translators from Wycliffe/SILmoved to Yaniruma.[17]

In May 2006, tour-guide Paul Raffaele led an Australian60 Minutescrew to report on the people.[18]After a few days' filming, the crew were allegedly approached by a man who claimed his 6-year-old nephew Wa-Wa had been accused of being a khakua (witch doctor), and was in danger of being cannibalised. The60 Minutescrew declined to offer assistance. Paul Raffaele approached the rivalSeven Network,who agreed to send aToday Tonightcrew to remove Wa-Wa from the area. Before being able to gain access to them, the crew were deported by Indonesian authorities at the Papuan capital ofJayapuraovervisaissues.[citation needed]

The 2007 BBC documentaryFirst Contact,presented byMark Anstice,features footage from his 1999 encounter with members of the Korowai people, and describes how they were disturbed upon seeing a "white ghost", whose presence indicated the end of the world was nigh.

In January–February 2011, the BBC documentaryHuman Planetcommissioned the Korowai building of a treehouse 35m high.[5]

In August 2019, the "Best Ever Food Review Show"channel on YouTube made contact with the Korowai people in which they ate various foods of the culture.

In the documentaryMy Year with the Tribe,[19]a film team visits the Korowai area several times over a period of one year. The documentary reveals that an industry has developed around the supposedly traditional lives of many Korowai. Many locals take advantage of the Korowai's reputation for living a particularly original life in order to earn money. It is also reported that houses located at a particular high altitude have been financed by Western film crews.

Cannibalism claims[edit]

The Korowai have been reported to practice ritual cannibalism up to the present day. Anthropologists suspect that cannibalism is no longer practiced by the Korowai clans that have had frequent contact with outsiders.[20][non-primary source needed]Recent reports suggest that certain clans have been coaxed into encouraging tourism by perpetuating the myth that cannibalism is still an active practice.[21]

Architecture[edit]

The distinctive highstiltarchitecture of the Korowai houses, well above flood-water levels, is a form of defensivefortification– to disrupt rival clans from capturing people (especially women and children) for slavery or cannibalism. The height and girth of the commonironwoodstilts also serves to protect the house fromarsonattacks in which huts are set alight and the inhabitants smoked out.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ab"Facts About Korowai Tribe in Southern Papua".Authentic Indonesia.Retrieved10 March2024.
  2. ^ab"Korowai in Indonesia".Joshua Project.Retrieved10 March2024.
  3. ^Nathalia, Telly.Indonesia census turns up Papua tribe living in treesArchived13 December 2017 at theWayback Machine.Reuters.
  4. ^Indonesian Korowai Tribe First Officially Recognised As Tree-DwellersThe Telegraph 8 Jul 2010. Visited 29 Jan 2013.
  5. ^abSustainable living: Korowai tribe and tree houses.BBC.
  6. ^Hays, Jeffrey."KOROWAI PEOPLE: PAPUA'S PINT-SIZE, TREEHOUSE-LIVING CANNIBALS | Facts and Details".factsanddetails.com.
  7. ^Burke, Steve."Economics: How do the Korowai make a living?".korowaitribe.tumblr.com.
  8. ^"Tribal Art - Mixed lot (3 items): New Guinea, Asmat territory: three tobacco pipes with fine incised decoration. - Dorotheum".www.dorotheum.com.Archived fromthe originalon 26 June 2018.Retrieved2 May2018.
  9. ^Gros, Martin."The Korowai Tribe".Maptia.com.
  10. ^Slama, Martin; Munro, Jenny (2015).From 'Stone-Age' to 'Real-Time': Exploring Papuan Temporalities, Mobilities and Religiosities.ANU Press.ISBN9781925022438.
  11. ^"Stone Korowai Tribe | Cultural Trek | West Papua".whistlingarrow.com.
  12. ^Enk, Gerrit J. van; Vries, Lourens de (1997).The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their Language in Its Cultural Context.Oxford University Press.ISBN9780195355635.
  13. ^Van Arsdale, Peter."Director of African Initiatives and Adjunct Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver".Retrieved4 March2014.
  14. ^Van Arsdale, Peter (March 1974).Report of an Expedition to the Interior Asmat and Citak Regions of Irian Jaya, Indonesia.University of Denver: Unpublished document. pp. 1–32.
  15. ^Mitton, Robert (1983).The Lost World of Irian Jaya.Melbourne: Oxford University Press. pp. 136–157.ISBN0-19-554368-8.
  16. ^Camellia Webb-Gannon (23 November 2015)."Salvaging Democracy for West Papuans in the Face of Australia-Indonesia Obstruction".The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.Retrieved24 November2016.
  17. ^"Wycliffe Bijbelvertalers".Archived fromthe original(in Dutch)on 2 May 2006.Retrieved25 October2006.
  18. ^Ben Fordham (21 May 2006)."Last cannibals".NineMsn. Archived fromthe originalon 21 August 2006.Retrieved25 October2006.
  19. ^My Year With The Tribe. episode One,archivedfrom the original on 21 December 2021,retrieved20 May2021
  20. ^Erica Tennenhouse (26 July 2016)."Modern-Day Human Cannibalism".The Science Explorer.Retrieved25 November2016.
  21. ^John Garnaut (18 September 2006)."Cannibals may be feeding the lies".The Sydney Morning Herald.Retrieved25 October2006.

Bibliography[edit]

  • The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their Language in Its Cultural Context (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 9)by Gerrit J. Van Enk & Lourens de Vries (ISBN0-19-510551-6).
  • Korowai: inEncyclopedia of World Cultures – Supplement (Editors: Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard) pp.183–187by Gerrit J.van Enk. Macmillan Reference United States / Gale Group (ISBN0-02-865671-7).
  • Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Placeby Rupert Stasch (ISBN9780520256866). University of California Press.
  • Korowai Treehouses and the Everyday Representation of Time, Belonging, and Death. by Rupert Stasch. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology. 12(3): 327–347.
  • Textual Iconicity and the Primitivist Cosmos: Chronotopes of Desire in Travel Writing about Korowai of West Papua. by Rupert Stasch. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21(1):1–21.
  • Word Avoidance as a Relation-Making Act: A Paradigm for Analysis of Name Utterance Taboos. by Rupert Stasch. Anthropological Quarterly 84(1):101–120.
  • The Camera and the House: The Semiotics of New Guinea "Treehouses" in Global Visual Culture. by Rupert Stasch. Comparative Studies in Society and History 53(1):75–112.
  • Knowing Minds is a Matter of Authority: Political Dimensions of Opacity Statements in Korowai Moral Psychology. by Rupert Stasch. Anthropological Quarterly 81(2): 443–453.
  • Referent-Wrecking in Korowai: A New Guinea Abuse Register asEthnosemioticProtest. by Rupert Stasch. Language in Society 37(1):1–25.
  • Demon Language: The Otherness of Indonesian in a Papuan Community. by Rupert Stasch. In Bambi Schieffelin and Miki Makihara, eds., Consequences of Contact: Language Ideologies and Sociocultural Transformations in Pacific Societies, pp. 96–124. Oxford University Press.
  • The Semiotics of World-Making in Korowai Feast Longhouses. by Rupert Stasch. Language & Communication 23(3/4):359–383.
  • Separateness as a Relation: The Iconicity, Univocality, and Creativity of Korowai Mother-in-law Avoidance. by Rupert Stasch. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (n.s.) 9(2):311–329.
  • Joking Avoidance: A Korowai Pragmatics of Being Two. by Rupert Stasch. American Ethnologist 29(2):335–365.

External links[edit]

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