Kombai people

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The Kombai are a Melanesian tribal people from the Indonesian province of Papua in Western New Guinea. The Kombai have become prominent to the outside world primarily because of their traditional tree house dwellings, which often reach heights of over 20 meters. They live adjacent to the Korowai people, who also live in treehouses, and have some similar cultural practices. The two ethnic groups do interact, although as they speak different languages, mutual intelligibility is sometimes problematic. Pigs are equivalent to currency to the Kombai, for example, if the wife of a Kombai man were to die, the family of the woman may demand pigs as compensation. For Kombai men to marry, they first have to buy the woman from her family with necklaces made from dogs teeth.

Kombai also host parties (although very rarely), in which they invite people of other tribes, often to repay the other tribes for parties they held, or to clear their names after a "Suangi" attack on another family or tribe. In these parties the Kombai would feed their guest sago, and grubs from the sago tree, which are a delicacy to the Kombai. The leader of the family will hang brush from the ceiling of where the party was housed, and if the the party was a success, the other tribesmen burn the brush.

A television series on The Discovery Channel entitled "Living with the Kombai" in the US, and on both the National Geographic Channel and The Discovery Channel, called "World's Lost Tribes" in the UK, was shown in January 2007. In the series, two men travelled to Papua and spent several months living with an extended Kombai family. Their adventures included hunting for a large lizard and wild pig (not a captive pig, see religion section) and fishing by constructing a rudimentary dam on a stream. They also helped chop down large trees with a stone axe, made sago from the Sago Palm tree, and used its fibres to build a treehouse nearly 80 feet off the ground.

The subsistence patterns of the Kombai people are somewhat related to those of the Asmat people on the southwest coast of Papua, although the Kombai are linguistically very distinct.

[edit] Religion

Occasionally, the Kombai may sacrifice a pig - a most sacred animal, only usually used to settle disputes between tribes and family. The sacrifice begins by tying the pig's legs together and taking it to a river side. It is then shot with arrows - taking care to ensure a quick death - before mentioning the three elements; Fire, Water and Air. The animal is then skinned and has the fat scraped off and offered to their god, Refafu. No women are allowed to watch this procedure; otherwise it will render the sacrifice ineffective. After the sacrifice, no one is allowed to bathe in the river for the next two days, as Refafu will be drinking the spilt blood of the pig - it is believed he absorbs the passion it produces. The Kombai also believe in evil spirits called Suangi. Suangis are said to eat the blood and/or internal organs of their victims and then stuff the bodies with leaves and grass. They are also believed to devour the person's soul. After being attacked, the victim is then said to return home where they seem to have fallen mysteriously ill. If a victim is able to name the Suangi that has attacked him, they are often killed and eaten by the victim's family in the belief that it will free the person's spirit.