Baliem Valley

The Baliem Valley (Lembah Baliem; also spelled Balim and sometimes known as the Grand Valley) is a valley of the Central Highlands in Western New Guinea, specifically in the province of Highland Papua, Indonesia. The main town in the valley is Wamena, which lies on the Baliem River. The valley is about 80 km in length by 20 km in width and lies at an altitude of about 1,600–1,700 metres, with a population of over 200,000.

The discovery of the Baliem Valley to the Western world and the unexpected presence of its large agricultural population was made by Richard Archbold’s third zoological expedition to New Guinea in 1938. On 21 June an aerial reconnaissance flight southwards from Hollandia (now Jayapura) found what the expedition called the "Grand Valley". Since then the valley has gradually been opened up to a limited amount of tourism, with Baliem Valley Festival (Festival Lembah Baliem) as a main tourist event. When Western anthropologists explored Baliem Valley in the 1940s and 1960s, they thought it was only populated by Dani people. However, further exploration to the east and south revealed that the valley was also inhabited by Yali people, Mek people, and Nduga people. During discussions by Dewan Adat Papua in 2002, it was decided that people living in Baliem Valley are called Hubula people, Walak people located to the north, and Lani people (Western Dani) located to the west.

The following is copied from the back cover of Peter Matthiessen’s book Under the Mountain Wall: In the Baliem Valley in Central New Guinea live the Kurulu, a Stone Age tribe that survived into the twentieth century. Peter Matthiessen visited the Kurulu with the Harvard-Peabody Expedition in 1961 and wrote Under the Mountain Wall as an account not of the expedition, but of the great warrior Weaklekek, the swineherd Tukum, U-mue and his family, and the boy Weake, killed in a surprise raid. Matthiessen observes these people in their timeless rhythm of work and play and war, of gardening and wood gathering, feasts and funerals, pig stealing and ambush.