IRIAN JAYA CULTURE - Travel Packages & Filming Trips

Irian Jaya has diverse cultures, due tue the many tribes and the vast land area, and they hardly made contacts with each other in the past. The cultures vary, from communities living in coastal areas to those living in the high mountainous areas. The cultures of communities in coastal areas have been greatly influenced by other incoming cultures through interactions between local communities with the people coming in to trade, come on mission, or other interests. On the other hand, the communities of Irian Jaya living in the inland mountain areas and other relatively more difficult to access aras, many of them still keep and practice their indigenous culture and traditions.

The way of life
The indigenous people of this province are Melanesians with black skins and curly hair. They generally have a root crop subsistence agriculture based on sweet potatoes and taros. The people of Papua obtain their starch from the sago palm which gives and extremely generous yield for remarkably little effort. Feral and domesticated pigs on the island is originally came from Southeast Asia was an event which has had vast cultural and ritual significance for its people. Pigs are often treated as members of the family and are sometimes suckled by women.

While many other people of the world were still hunters and gatherers, Papua people had begun to garden. After fairly recently, many of them lived with a simple Stone Age Culture wearing little clothing and decorating their bodies with paintings, shells, pig tusks, feathers and skins. There is a plethora of language in the province, perhaps some 250 in all, each representing a tribal group which mixes little with the others. Some of the more remote groups still have virtually no contact with the outside world. In recent years, Indonesians from elsewhere in the country have come to this province.

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