Papua is a province located in the easternmost of Indonesia. This province is a province that is still thick and rich in arts and culture in the province, this province has various tribes such as the Asmat who inhabit the province, with people who uphold the arts and culture in their area. The arts and culture in this area are very interesting, and unique.
There are many interesting Papuan cultures that are interesting to discuss. In addition to the different traditions and languages between tribes who live in mountainous areas and who live in coastal areas, Papuans have traditional ceremonies, clothing, and traditional houses which are inherited from generations of ancestors for thousands of years that continue to be preserved today.
1. Bakar Batu
Usually Batu Bakar is held when welcoming important guests or wedding parties. Bakar Batu is also carried out when closing the harvest season as a form of gratitude to the creator for the abundant harvest. Named Bakar Batu because in this celebration, the tribes in Papua cook food that becomes a party feast by burning it with hot stones.Usually it starts with traditionally lighting a fire, which is rubbing the rattan on wood to sprinkle the fire. The fire will be used to burn the stone until it is hot enough. This stone is then arranged in such a way in the hole that has been provided and then piled on top of foodstuffs such as sweet potatoes and pigs which will be covered again by hot stones and covered by grasses so that the heat stays inside and burns the food until cooked.
Each tribe has its own designation that refers to this traditional ceremony. Like Paniai people who use the word mogo gapii or residents in Wamena who call it the oba isago kit. But the most commonly used term is barapen.
2. Cut the Finger
Yakuza is not the only community group in the world that has a finger-cutting tradition. But unlike the Yakuza who cut their fingers when they failed in carrying out the mission, the people of Papua carry out this tradition when they lose family members.
Customary rules require families who have lost their fingers to cut off because for some tribes in Papua, they consider fingers to represent family members. When someone loses a family member, they automatically also have to lose one finger.
When viewed from a modern perspective, of course the finger-cutting tradition is a very extreme tradition and it shouldn't be done. Because of the changing times too, this tradition began to be abandoned and increasingly forgotten by the tribes in Papua.
3. Carved Wood
Not many people know that Indonesian wood carvings worldwide are not only from the city of Jepara but also from the eastern part of the archipelago, more precisely the Asmat tribe inhabiting the bay of Flamingo. For thousands of years, woodcarvers were seen as a respectable profession among the Asmat people.
The intricate wood carving carved in traditional tools is a characteristic that attracts world tourists. The equipment used was still very simple, such as axes made of stone, animal bones and conch shells. High aesthetic value makes this craft sold at very high prices. Not only in terms of aesthetics, Asmat wood carvings have four cultural functions, including:
a. Embodiment of ancestral spirits;
b. Expression of feeling happy or sad;
c. Religious symbols such as humans, animals, plants and various other objects;
d. A symbol of beauty and local wisdom.
4. Koteka
Perhaps this is the most widely known work of Papuan culture by the world community. Koteka is the traditional clothing of the Papuan people which is used as a cover for the pubic male of several tribes in Papua. However, not all tribes in Papua use koteka. Koteka is only used by a few tribes who live in the mountains, while for residents who live in coastal areas prefer moge as a choice of dress, a kind of loincloth in the form of tassels.
Koteka is worn by boys who have turned 5 years old. Not only as clothing, koteka is also a symbol of the social strata of the people of Papua. The higher the status or position of a person, he has the right to wear koteka with a larger size. For the kings or tribal chiefs, the koteka that they wore was specifically hereditary from their predecessors.
5. Women's Traditional Clothing
There are many types of traditional women's clothing that can be found in Papua, almost every tribe has their respective traditional clothes. Even so, most of these clothes are made of the same material: taken from dried plant fibers which are then arranged into a kind of skirt to cover the lower body.
The ornaments used in clothing are also relatively not so complicated, only shapes such as circles and boxes arranged geometrically. Usually some headdresses are added as accessories made of animal feathers such as birds of paradise.
Although not many, but several tribes in Papua are also known for their woven fabric crafts. The colors used are not so varied only brown, red, black or yellow because they still use natural dyes from plant sap.
6. Honai Traditional House
The traditional Honai house architecture is specifically designed to fight the cold mountain weather of Papua. The room of the house is made not too big with the height of the house reaching 2-2.5 meters with a door and no window. The entire wall of the house is built of wooden pieces with a roof arranged from thick dry straw. In the middle of the house there is a fireplace that is used to cook or just warm the room temperature.
Honai itself is divided into 3 types:
a. Honai, a house intended for men
b. Ebei, a house intended for women
c. Wamai, a house used as a pigsty
Honai has more functions than just a place to live. Honai is used by Papuans as a gathering place, educating children as the next generation and in ancient times it was also used as a place to set strategies in the event of war between tribes.
6. The Musyoh dance is a traditional Papuan dance which is a sacred dance of an indigenous tribe in Papua that aims to calm the spirits of indigenous Papuan tribes who have died in accidents. The indigenous tribe of Papua believes that if someone dies in an accident, his soul is not calm, so this scral dance (Musyoh Dance) is performed to calm the soul of the person who crashed. The Mushyoh traditional dance is accompanied by a traditional Papuan musical instrument, Tifa. This Tifa musical instrument is also used in several dances from other Papuan Indigenous Tribes.
7. Sajojo dance is a social dance of various indigenous tribes in Papua. This dance is already quite well-known as a welcoming dance which is often performed at guest greetings and other events. Sajojo dancers dance by jumping and stomping their feet. Various traditional Papuan musical instruments like Tifa are also used to accompany this Sajojo dance.
This Sajojo dance became famous around the 1990s. Even since then, this dance is mostly performed by the people of Indonesia. This dynamic dance can indeed be done by everyone. In its development, the music of the Sajojo dance accompaniment is growing even among them already using modern music which is widely known to the public. This dance is often accompanied by a Papuan regional song, Sajojo. This Sajojo song tells about a beautiful Papuan girl who became an idol in her village.
8. Yospan dance is a social dance of young people in Papua. This dance appeared around 1960 and was even popular and used as a motion on physical health exercises.
The word Yospan itself is an acronym from Yosim Pancar which is a dance name in itself. Yospan dance is indeed a merger of two traditional Papuan dances. Yosim is a dance from the Sairei Bay area, while the Pancar dance comes from the Biak, Numfor and Manokwari regions.
Yospan dance is usually performed by 2 groups consisting of dancers and musicians. Musical instruments accompanying Yospan dance include drums, guitars, ukulele and stringed bass 3. There is no specific benchmark on the clothing worn by dancers and musicians in Yospan dance. Each Yospan group has its own clothing but still characterizes Papuan clothing.
9. Papeda is a typical food of Papua that is sago which is made into porridge or known as papeda. The people of Papua usually eat papeda with yellow gravy, which is made from tuna or coal and seasoned with turmeric and lime.
10. sago worms sago is one of the other specialties of Papua is Sate Ulat Sago. This type of food for us might make nausea and even vomit. Sago caterpillars are obtained from old sago tree trunks. Papuan native people who are accustomed to living in the alams often consume sago caterpillars first. But now this sago caterpillar has been processed by burning until it is almost similar to satay. More precisely this sago caterpillar satay is a typical food of Raja Ampat.
11. Papuan typical fish wrap is made from two ingredients, namely sea fish and taro leaves as material to wrap it. Typical spices used are only salt to give a salty taste and to eliminate the sap on the taro leaves used. The ingredients and ingredients are small and the way to make it is very simple and easy. In the preparation, first clean the fish and then put in the taro leaves and closed. finally burned on low heat until cooked. If it is cooked, lift it up and serve it immediately when it's warm.
12. Tradition of Tattoos
So far, people only think that the tattoo tradition in Indonesia is only done by the Dayaks in Kalimantan. But in Papua there is actually a tradition of tattooing the body, which has been passed down for generations. Some tribes who usually decorate their bodies with tattoos are Moi and Meyakh in West Papua. Tattoo motifs affixed to the bodies of tribes in Papua have certain differences and characteristics, generally these tattoos have geometric motifs or circular lines and dotted triangular shaped cones, or tridiagonal lines. The tools and materials used in making tattoos in Papua also have their uniqueness, including using sago tree thorns or fish bones, and dipping them into a mixture of fine charcoal and langsat tree sap. Generally, tattoos are done on the chest, cheeks, eyelids, calves, hips, back and also on the hands.
