Sago palm is 'tree of life' for Asmat tribe. Many tribal wars were fought in the past over sago rights. Without it, they have no food ('papeda'), shelter (Roof), or clothing. Even they use it for trading or purchasing a bride. Momena tribes meals are made from sago wrapped in banana leaf, cooked in the smouldering coals of the family fire, and put wild fungi, small insects or lizard in the sago
'Hunila' is a hut for women cooking the foot and where all the women live in Some people still believe to protect their self from 'marauding' (evil) spirit, they put a piece of lime under their pillow or put it in pocket.
A downward-pointing boar's tusk, worn by a Dani's warrior (put on his nose) signals he is on the warpath. An upturned tusk put one at ease, as symbol of peace. Papuan women, just like Balinese, toils from dawn to dusk, gathering firewood & edible greens, collecting salt, rearing pigs and children, and tending the sweet potato gardens.
Their basic diet is the sweet potato, cucumber, vine leaves, peanuts & ginger root. They eat meat only at the marriage ceremony, coz at that special occasion they are allowed to partake meat (pork).
'Noken' is a carrying net (kind of bag) with fibres from Aquilaria bush, usually put at their had (not at their shoulder) Papuan women wear sway like rhumba dancers called 'Thali" (grass skirt) and change it when married for a cage-confining skirt of white, red and yellow orchid fibre which is braided by the males of the family and wound tightly around her hips by the village women.
Cut finger not happen on yakuza, in Papua, if one of their beloved person died (parents or husband), the sons/ daughter/ wife will cut all their hands' fingers as the expression of losing/ sadPolygamy already known thousands years ago in Papuan as neolithic tribe who still exist in this earth (but I wonder why western people always relate that word to muslim lol). A wife is forbidden to have sex when she pregnant until her baby age 3 years, in that absence, her husband has right to have another wife.
Source : "Irian jaya", jullie campbel.
So do you know about Papua now?
