opening this area to the outside world.
In 1974, a mission station established by the Netherlands Reformed Congregation was destroyed and all their Yali helpers were killed and eaten. The massacre was possibly the culmination of misunderstandings by the Nipsan people of the new cultures brought in by the missionaries and their Yali helpers.
Four years later the mission renewed their efforts to set up their station. This time the Nipsan people received the mission more favorably, and there are now about 3,000 followers spread over 25 congregations in the area.
A Moni man from the highlands near the Kemandoga Valley.
The Kimyal
The 20,000 Kimyal were one of the last major groups to take their place on the ethnographic map. Robert Mitton, writing in The Lost World of Irian Jaya in the 1970s, called their territory "True cannibal country." In 1968, two Protestant missionaries, Australian Stan Dale and American Phil Masters, were killed and eaten while hiking from Korupun to Ninia (see "Missionaries," page 46). In the same area several years later, anxiously awaiting their helicopter amidst hostile natives, Mitton writes: "we could have been eaten and defecated by the time it got to us." When they were finally rescued, the Kimyal shot farewell arrows at the helicopter.
Linguistically and culturally related to the Kimyal are the Eipomek, or simply Mek, living around Eipomek, east of Nalca. (Older texts refer to this group with the silly, and unflattering moniker "Goliath pygmies.")
The Eipomek are short-statured mountain people, and dress in rattan hoops. Many of the men wear nosepieces of bone and feather headdresses. Unlike many highlanders, the Eipomek play long, thin drums, decorated in motifs much like Asmat drums.
The Ekari: born capitalists
Furthest to the west of West Papua's highlands, in the fertile Paniai Lakes and Kamu Valley region, live the 100,000 Ekari. The Ekari (in some texts, called Kapauku) have been among the most successful of West Papua's ethnic groups in making the transition to modern ways of life. One anthropologist, Leopold Pospisil, has called them "primitive capitalists" for their acquisitiveness and culture based around property ownership.
[Note: as of this writing, the Paniai Lakes region is off limits to tourists.]
Of all highland groups, the Ekari have proved the most responsive to government programs such as improved animal husbandry and agricultural techniques. The first contact with the West came in 1938. One subdivision of the group came under strong Roman Catholic influence after 1948 while others hosted Protestant missionaries.
Many groups in Melanesia are led by non-hereditary chiefs called "Big Men" who achieve their status through personal initiative. In West Papua, such Big Men rise to their position through skills in war, oratory and trade, in varying combinations. The Ekari chiefs are an extreme example of wealth-accumulating Big Men, depending on successful pig breeding, which in turn requires a large, polygamous household. This enables the leader to extend credit by lending pigs and to show his generosity to his followers.
The Ekari have no concept of a gift—everything is leased, rented or loaned with elaborate calculations of credit and interest. Just about everything can be settled with suitable payments, including crimes such as rape, adultery and murder. A fee was even charged for raising a child.
After Dr. Pospisil gave the tribe a lecture on agriculture, he was given several chickens—the Ekari remembered what he had told them earlier about being paid to lecture to students in the United States.
The Ekari, who keep all accounts in their heads, work with a highly developed decimal system, which repeats at 60. Numbers are crucial. When Pospisil showed them a photo of a pretty smiling girl, the Ekari counted teeth. In a photo of a skyscraper, it was the number of windows. Boys considered it a special favor to be allowed to count the white man's "money," a collection of various shells and beads. The anthropologist was kept well advised, ahead of time, when his cash flow was getting behind. Not surprisingly, the Ekari became experts at mathematics when schools opened in their homeland.
Most unusual for a traditional culture, the Ekari have no communal property. Everything is owned, including each section of an irrigation ditch, a part of a road or footpath, even a wood-and-liana suspension bridge.
Conspicuous consumption is taboo: the most valuable shell necklaces are loaned or rented for ceremonies. Persistent stinginess can lead to capital punishment—execution by a kinsman's arrow.
The Paniai Lakes region is fertile when properly cultivated. In addition to the three existing lakes, Paniai, Tage and Tigi, there is another that began to dry out some 15 centuries ago, leaving behind the swampy Kamu Valley. Lake products are harvested exclusively by women, who collect crayfish, dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, waterbugs, frogs, lizards, birds' eggs, vegetables and fruits.
Traditional Ekari religion
The Ekari creator was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and... nonexistent. Only after missionaries arrived did the Ekari name their creator, Ugatame. They believed that since all good and evil came from this being, man had no free will—a most Calvinist philosophy. But religion occupied little of the people's attention. Of the 121 tenets of Ekari belief compiled by Pospisil, only 14 dealt with the supernatural.
Christian missionary efforts ran into problems. The Ekari refused to come to church after one of the missionaries stopped giving out free tobacco upon attendance. "No tobacco, no heleluju," said the men. And because the highlands get awfully cold at night, the Christian hell didn't seem like such a bad place—warm, and nobody had to gather wood. (See "Missionaries," page 46.)
First contacts with the west
In 1936, the Ekari saw an airplane fly overhead for the first time. The pilot, a certain Lieutenant Wissel, was credited with discovering the area and the lakes were named after him. (In 1962, the name was changed to Paniai.) Even many years after the event, the Ekari clearly remembered exactly what they were doing when the plane came.
In 1938, a Dutch government post was established at Enarotali and missionaries soon followed. World War II interrupted the process of modernization. The Japanese soldiers forced the tribesmen to participate in labor gangs and to feed them, leading to resistance and deaths on both sides.
After the war, the Dutch returned and the pace of change picked up. Thanks to the good advice of Roman Catholic priests, the Ekari radically improved the utilization of their lands by building large-scale irrigation ditches to prevent flooding.
The construction in 1958 of an airstrip at the western edge of the Kamu Valley, which brought in cash wages, ended the Ekari youths' dependence on loans from their rich elders, leading to a loss of influence and prestige for the older generation.
The Ekari became long-distance traders. They even began to rent missionary airplanes to take pigs and other trade items to outlying areas. Dr. Pospisil, who wanted a ride on one of these flights, was told he could—for a fee. He was directed to sit in back with the pigs. When he objected because he wanted to take photos, he was allowed to sit next to the pilot—for an added charge.
The ending of warfare and the speedy acceptance of western medicine led to a great population increase, and many Ekari have left to seek a livelihood outside their homeland, especially after a road connected the Kamu Valley with the district capital of Nabire. By 1975, over 2,000 Ekari had settled there.
In
