Speaking about West Papua Culture is a very difficult job, since they almost have
no culture, every group, or every clique has their own specific behavior or customs
that is not related, even between house to house. There are a great variation,
of culture from those having slight relation from one to an other up to those
having definitely no observable relation. Their relation is basically based on
genealogy relation which is mostly also disordered. This is added again by the
dozens of different languages spoken by each clique or group, as a real big stone
block to understand the whole situation.
Among those there are some simple cultures already well known such as Baliem tribe,
Dani tribe, Yali tribe, and Agat tribe. But almost all of them physically have
the same characteristics. In the past most of them were living deep in inner land
and on foot of mountain, some of them build their nest on the trees. With the
unity of West Papua into Republic Indonesia, government have tried to persuade
them to live a more settled manner with cultivated land, so some of them went
down to the open areas and more cultivated areas, and adjust themselves to the
new life which is pioneered by the migrant from other parts of Indonesia, such
as around North coast, cities and centers of local governments.
The main factors of their low mentality which is not conducive for their development
are their extreme primitive life and social system. But their primitive life is
the main attraction for experts as well as tourists to visit West Papua. It is
famous just because they are primitive, with their housing is also very simple
in great harmony with the nature, as they still not wear cloth, as their chieftain
corps is kept for years at home as a mummy, and their pig feast.
The people of West Papua shows a great variety of culture and languages, although
physically the whole ethnics that live today look the same, that they show Melanosoid
Characteristics. Seen from the variety of their culture the whole people of west
Papua can be grouped very roughly based on the area such as ; Cendrawasih area,
Cendrawasih beach and it's islands resident of North mangrove area, resident around
Jaya Wijaya high land, people live on Savannah of South area. Among them some
ethnic have been given the name and known well such as the Dani, The Agat and
the Yali. The variation of their culture can be seen from their living or economy,
art, and social system besides there are a great variation of language. In General
the variation of language shows the group of Melanesian family and there are specific
of West Papua languages which among West Papuan language itself showing a further
great variation. The Melanesian language is part of a widely spoken language called
Austronesian. This group of language is spoken on area from Madagascar to Paas
island on Pacific ocean and to the north in bordered by Taiwan. An inventory of
West Papua languages which are not grouped as Melanesian languages has been reported
by faculty of Anthropology, University of Indonesia in 1963, edited by Prof. Koentjaraningrat
and Harsja W. Bachtiar. The area of Cendrawasih Bay and along the northern shore
of West Papua are known as the areas having various languages groups with small
number of speakers, the member of a certain language group can be 100 persons
or even less. This extreme variation can be traced back into prehistory when their
time of migration from one place to their current resident. Since then a condition
of isolated life among each others continues until the independence of Indonesia
. Linguistic theory of isolation has been explaining about similarity of main
words and development to further variation of most of the words. Even an Indian
and linguist used a theory of geometry to estimate the time of a language start
to break into different group by analyzing the basic 200 vocabulary. Along the
northern coast of West Papua flow some rivers such as Woska, Tor, Bier, Biri,
Wirowai, Toarim, and Semowai. The rivers originate from goutier mountain, Karamour,
and Bonggo. Multi various ethnic groups now living along the shore of West Papua
originated from highland deep at the river sources. The started to migrated around
300 years ago, and some started 2 generations ago. The phenomena of moving from
highland to the beach is still continuing. They built their settlements behind
the sand beach on the marshy area. In 1920 there were around 24 settlements and
relocated by force by the Dutch to settle on the beach with the health reason
and control facility. For 24 settlements by language can be grouped into 7 languages
which were belong to Melanesian group. During the period of observation between
1940 to 1963 the birth rate was very low with the migration of people to the town,
the number of population on north shore had been decreasing their houses are built
on wooden poles with total height around 4.5 meters, and 4x5 meters wide. A house
consist of 2 or 1 rooms for sleeping, and another standing house for cooking the
material for making house are wooden lodges, tied with rattan, wall mode of palm
leaves, floor is made of mangrove skin, and roof is from palm leaves and branches
of mangrove which is filed beautifully. In the phrases of constructing a house
a big feast is needed, and exchange gifts for those who assist in the building
is still a hard part of the process. The main subsistence of the people on the
north coast of West Papua is the Sagu (the essence of palm trees). Their sagu
farm is the natural sagu forest located 4 to 5 kms deep inland. Each family do
not have clear border of the farm where they have their own area or where is belong
to others. Sagu tree with the age between 8 to 12 years is ready to be harvested.
On the northern coast the work of harvesting sagu is both for men and women, while
at the area of the river's source this is exclusively the work of women, while
men are hunters and land cultivators. They hunt various animal such as mouse,
pigs, casuary birds, kangaroo, snake, and lizards. Very small wish from them to
cultivate land in more systematic way. They just plant in no good treatment among
forest area, then leave the area untreated to open other places, the neglected
land will not be taken over by other people although after long time the land
get back it's fertility. This is probably the choice is still to big, and for
them cultivating land is not interesting on not important. Coconut meal or copra
is one product of Northern shore which was started in 1920 when Dutch government
took the resident of Masimasi island as volunteer of growing coconut which resulted
thousands of coconut trees decorated the shore. In the course of time this big
plantation continuously degraded until 1962 it has been really in trouble and
disappeared their kinship system is almost the same as other Indonesian society,
with the smallest unit is family and their children an average of 4 person per
family. Some family is a big family where the grandparents are living also in
the same house. Their naming tradition got the influence of Dutch Christian so
they used convert name beside family name which is taken from his/her father's
name. Before the conversion into Christian the original kinship must had been
exist proved by the terminology of "Auwet", within an auwet there were names showing
the similarity. Most probable that this auwet kinship system was a patrilineal
system. Marriage even also has introduced exchange gift as other Indonesian traditional
ethnics, especially the family of the youth must give an exchange to the girl
family. Feasts during social events are also known just like many traditional
area of Indonesia. These auwets are said to have specialization such as the auwet
of Bagre and Maban have members who were skilful in warfare. Auwet Kibuan and
Abowei who lived on high dry land were skill in cultivating land. Each auwet had
their big house on poles where the important and relic of the family were preserved
such as flutes. During relocation in 1920 from the marshy area to the beach all
their houses were burnt, and the tradition of auwet and their heritages become
disappeared during registration by the teachers from Ambon, it was found that
certain group bearing the similarity of name and this group was called "fam".
The preparation of a youth to merry a girl is the collection of shell arranged
into a decor of big shell called "krae" a necklace arranged from dog teeth, belt
made of jewelry, and rope made of wood skin. In the present of imported goods
which are sold by Chinese, they also collect plates, kitchen tools, foods, especially
canned and others. All these material will be used in exchange to the girl. It
is a big and hard thing to do, that is why a youth got aid from the brother of
his mother in collecting this gift and often need a long time. This wealth is
given to the family of the girl after the marriage ceremony is completed and followed
by special feast. After this traditional feast there is one ceremony again in
the church. According to the tradition a new wedding couple should build a new
house, but this something that too hard, beside the cost of building also the
feast that is needed is a hell. So in the fact to many new couple live verilocally
(stay with husband family), yet some are living uxorilocally (with wife family)
which actually uncommon among the society. Social life on the whole villages of
Northern coast is really very weak a nd like there is big aphatism among members.
Government instruction for the maintenance of village environment, economic life
and social are considered already completed when it have been announced. No further
self initiative of better life. There is no leader arising among them. Most leaders
that could mobilize them are ambonese, Chinese, and other people from central
Indonesia who work there. This is indeed a great barrier to develop the society.
They do not respond to the modernization planned by the government. This is indeed
they will be very easy to be provocated by countries that is like Australia to
insert their interest to southern hemisphere. united state congress members that
do not know about what development in West Papua used this situation of their
resident as goodwill to Australian, as if they are savages of the provocated West
Papua resident. It is very contradictory when east Nusa Tenggara or other part
of Indonesian fishermen dragged by sea current to have reach Australian water,
the government of Australia will soon departed them to Indonesia.
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