Talk:Korowai people

Cannibalism
I strongly suggest the claims of cannibalism be removed. There are no other sources other than the 60 Minutes program that verify this, not even organisations that run tours to the area. Popular thought is that there has never been any conclusive evidence to suggest cannibalism ever took place as part of a cultural ritual *anywhere* in the world. So for a tabloid current affairs program to be the only evidence for this is to look decidedly intellectually shaky.
 * There's also this link : http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/september/cannibals.htm

--Ludicrous ignorance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.226.95 (talk) 15:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

An article about the Korowai by an anthropologist who had visited them was published in the Reader's Digest in August 1996. He said one of them had told him that they practice cannibalism. What makes you think the ONLY source is 60 Minutes? Michael Hardy 22:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * People should not take offense to statements backed up by fact. There are a few lingering cultures on Earth that have a history of cannabilism. Both the program on 60 minutes and the article in Reader's digest had a substantial scholarly basis. People who are eaten do not report the event to CNN after they have been eaten. Evidence may only point to a few remote cultures having ever practiced such politically incorrect rituals like human sacrifice and cannibalism, but these things have existed even if we find the concept of them distasteful. The idea that cannabilism has never taken place as part of cultural ritual anywhere in the world flies in the face of recorded history. Many cultures have practiced it. Doberman76 23:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

First, please "sign" your name after a posting by adding four tildes (~) at the end. Second, I understand and sympathize with the concerns of the first poster who was understandably dismayed at the salacious tabloid "journalism" of Australia's 60 Minutes program. Having spent several weeks as a guest of the Korowai in the early 1990s, my sense is that the 60 Minutes story is as factually dubious in its particulars as it is in being in bad taste (pun not intended) generally. As poster #2 points out, and as I can personally verify, the Korowai themselves acknowledged this was part of their recent past. So while there is a strong basis for concluding that cannibalism did occur in the region at least until relatively recently -- as been documented in the 1994 film "Lords of the Garden", produced by the A&E Network -- I am highly skeptical of the particulars of the story pursued by 60 Minutes. Cannibalism is/was not indiscriminate but rather was part of a system of "criminal justice" -- whereby those who had made severe social or moral transgressions were "sentenced" to death by cannibalism. This explanation is not to give my moral approval to this practice -- though I do not consider it "shameful" either; it was what it was -- but rather to put it into some cultural context that makes sense at least in the abstract. Generally, however, such a sentence was imposed swiftly, and in direct bearing to the actual culpable persons, thus casting no small amount of doubt onto the 60 Minutes story. In any case, denying that cannibalism ever was practiced in New Guinea seems as dubious as media over-hyping its extent (it definitely was neither universal nor indiscriminate) or exoticism (there are plenty of cultural "practices" in the modern Western world that are equally or more barbaric -- witness drive-by shootings). In short, while I agree that hyping the cannibalism of the Korowai is loathsome (who are the real cannibals -- the Korowai or the 60 Minutes people?), white-washing or denying certain facts does no one any good. My two cents. Arjuna 00:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Drive-by shootings are crimes, i.e. a practice that is deemed culturally unaccceptable. Therefore Arjuna's analogy is false. Joescallan 12:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

They are culturally acceptable to the gangs that carry them out. They are an accepted, acknowledged and understood part of gang behaviour, a sub tribe with its own laws. If you want killing that is not a "crime" therefore "culturally acceptable" to the ruling elite, then 2 people a month were killed by the State of Texas in 2009. And their bodies were eaten, though not by their own species ... (by bacteria and worms)

An Article
I read in a swedish science magazine about a person who had lived with the Korowai. In it, it says that they have been practicing cannibalism on people believed to be Khakhua, demons (not witch doctors, as this article claims) who eats the organs of people and replaces them with ashes. The Korowai then hunts down, kills, and eats these people. They do not eat people otherwise. Is that article false, or this one? 81.233.196.49 (talk) 15:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Kinship incomprehensible
Does the section on Kinship really have to be so technical ? I find it almost completely incomprehensible. We are talking about a tribe of people here, presumably they can be described in a way that the layperson can understand ? OliAtlason (talk) 19:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's academic babble and should either be translated into English or removed entirely. What do others think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.143.56.118 (talk) 00:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it should not be removed if we do not have something better. And it can be understood if you take your time to look up the terminology. --Againme (talk) 17:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This entire article is so sesquipedalian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.77.46.56 (talk) 22:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

important
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/7879628/The-Koroway-in-pictures-tribe-living-in-remote-Indonesian-forest-officially-recognised-as-tree-dwellers.html?image=1 - Must read... Merlin-UK (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Is bottom of the page really that hard to understand? Ian.thomson (talk) 22:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Video evidence?
What about this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQLzz7qorws 92.224.251.234 (talk) 09:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

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Human genome?
Any DNA studies available? 86.181.189.18 (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Treehouses
The BBC article does not suggest that the Korowai do not dwell in treehouses. It only goes as far as to say that in the filming of a documentary film, one tree house was staged for the purposes of the film and that this particular house was not actually inhabited by anyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.115.73.23 (talk) 14:51, 28 February 2021 (UTC)