It is possible that the Korowai were unaware of the existence of any people besides themselves, before outsiders made contact with them in 1970.
The Korowai language belongs to the Awyu–Dumut family of southeastern Papua and is part of the Trans–New Guinea phylum.
It has been claimed that the majority of the Korowai clans live in tree houses on their isolated territory.
Since 1980 some have moved into the recently opened villages of Yaniruma at the Becking River banks at the Kombai–Korowai area, Mu, and Mbasman the Korowai Citak area.
In 1987, a village was opened in Manggel, in Yafufla (1988), Mabul at the banks of the Eilanden River (1989), and Khaiflambolüp (1998).
The village absenteeism rate is still high, because of the relatively long distance between the settlements and the food or sago resources.
The Korowai appear to now smoke tobacco but not to drink alcohol.
The Korowai are hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists who practice shifting cultivation.
They have excellent hunting and fishing skills. Information about Korowai trade patterns is rare.
The Korowai have a few gender-specific activities, such as the preparation of sago and 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.
The patriclan is the central unit with respect to social, economic, and political organization.
Kinship terminology follows the Omaha I pattern (Lounsbury), knowing a central opposition between cross and parallel relationships.
In Korowai society the forms of institutional levirate and predominance of avuncular relationships are found, as well as a kind of affinal avoidance relationships. Marriage is exogamous and polygynous.
Preference is given to a conjugal relationship with the mother's mother's brother's daughter.
Leadership structures are based on personal qualities of big men, rather than on institution. Interclan warfare occur mainly because of witchcraft and sorcery-related conflicts.
The Korowai universe is filled with all kinds of spirits, some more personal of character than others.
Reverence is paid especially to the red headed, Ginger God - Gimigi.
To Gimigi, the creator spirit, the Korowai do not ascribe an important role in their daily lives.
Once in a lifetime a Korowai clan must organize a sago grub festival in order to stimulate prosperity and fertility in a ritual fashion.
In times of trouble they sacrifice domesticated pigs to the spirits of the ancestors.
The Korowai have an extraordinary and rich oral tradition: myths, folktales, magical sayings and charms, and totem traditions.
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.
The first documented contact by Western scientists with members of a band of western Korowai or eastern Citak took place on March 17–18, 1974.
The expedition was co-led by anthropologist Peter Van Arsdale now at the University of Denver, 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.
In the late 1970s, a few Christian missionaries began to live among the Korowai.
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 the Smithsonian Institution of Korowai treehouse construction and the practice of cannibalism as a form of criminal justice.
This resulted in the film Lords of the Garden. In 1996 a local Christian community was established, the members of it mainly originating from the neighbouring Kombai 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/SIL moved to Yaniruma.
In May 2006, tour-guide Paul Raffaele led an Australian 60 Minutes crew to report on the people.
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 or witch doctor, and was in danger of being cannibalised.
The 60 Minutes crew declined to offer assistance. Paul Raffaele approached the rival Seven Network, who agreed to send a Today Tonight crew 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 of Jayapura over visa issues.
The 2007 BBC Documentary - First Contact, presented by Mark 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 near.
In January–February 2011, the BBC documentary Human Planet commissioned the Korowai building of a treehouse 35m high.
Recent reports suggest that certain clans have been coaxed into encouraging tourism by perpetuating the myth that cannibalism is still an active practice.
The distinctive high stilt architecture of the Korowai houses, well above flood water levels, is a form of defensive fortification to disrupt rival clans from capturing people, especially women and children for slavery or cannibalism.
The height and girth of the common ironwood stilts also serves to protect the house from arson attacks in which huts are set alight and the inhabitants smoked out.
Tourism Observer
No comments:
Post a Comment