Escape the Modern World in the Baliem Valley

The primitive tribes living in Peru, Brazil, India and mostly in Africa have quite different clothes, ideas and languages than ours. These are mostly black people who paint their faces, wear only pieces of cloth and live completely far away from modern world. That's why there is no hospital, pharmacy or courthouse where they live. They also have really different customs. For example, people of a tribe in Ethiopia put wide rings onto their mouths. What about the tribe living in the Baliem Valley in Papua New Guinea?

Unfortunately there is no highway connection to these tribe villages. Instead, you have to walk for 3-4 days to arrive there, which I assume requires not only courage, but also ambition, passion and curiosity. Prior to visit, you have to get permission from the police station located in Jayapura, the capital of the state Papua. What's more, on your way, you will face wooden bridges, cliffs, muddy narrow streets, and uphills-downhills, which all might make you dehydrated. Therefore I suggest you to take breaks and not to walk at nights. If possible, take a tent with you and sleep when you feel tired.

The population in the valley is 250.000. People don't seem to wear as in the way we are used to see in public places. You might see topless women wearing only skirt-like clothes made of bamboo and backpacks to cover their backs. There is no electricity and they get drinking water from the river.

Women and men live separately including married couples. Men can only be with their wives when they will have sexual relationship. If the women get pregnant, men have to stay away from their wives for three years, because they believe that women milk themselves better while staying alone.

Men are not so different from women in terms of clothing. They only wear “koteka" made of squash to cover their penises and put some stuff in it. However it's hard to make kotekas and they are not identical. Some of them are short and wide, whereas some are long and thin. These indicate which tribe the person belongs to.

Another interesting point is that hunting is not so developed. In general tribes are thought to be good at hunting, but in the Baliem Valley, the main means of living is farming and people maintain their lives with potato and other vegetables. In addition, pigs are really important to them, in fact, it is the symbol of them. The more pigs a man has, the wealthier he is perceived by the society. In order to eat pork, they bi-weekly organize pig festivals.

How they cook the pork is another interesting tradition. First they burn the pig's hairs on the fire, then remove the visceral organs with bamboo knives. Then they dig a hole and cover it with herbs. In order to make the pork more delicious, they fill this hole with canes or acacia leaves. Then they place sweet potatoes on the second layer of leaves and they keep doing this until the hole is completely filled, and on the top, they place the pork. Then they add more leaves and hot stones. The last step is to close the hole with thick canes. The festival lasts around 6 hours and women eat offal, sweet potato and vegetables, whereas men eat the pork.