A group of hunter gatherers living in a remote Indonesian forest are thought to have become the first tribe to be officially recognised as tree-dwellers.
The Korowai, or Koroway, from Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, live in tree houses, speak their own tribal language, and live off forest animals and plants.
Almost 3,000 members of the nomadic clan, whose people wear only banana leaves, were recorded for the first time in the country’s census this year.
Members of the tribe skilfully climb ladders to their wooden homes often as high as 164ft (50m) from the forest floor where they usually live in a family of up to eight. Homes are built at different heights depending on how well they get on with their fellow tribe members.
The horticultural tribesmen excel at hunting and fishing. Koroway arrows, each having a different name, and used for different types of prey. The large barbed arrow in the centre is made from cassowary leg bone and used for killing people. The one to the left of that has a four-pointed tip for fish. The one with the wide blunt tip is used for lizards, and the one with the broad bamboo tip is for wild pigs.
Until the late 1970s, when anthropologists embarked on a study of the tribe, the Korowai were unaware of the existence of any peoples other than themselves.
They have engaged in cannilbalism but anthropologists believe that exposure to the outside world has put an end to this practice in recent years. Korowai people mainly eat wild boar, deer, sago and bananas.
The Korowai, or Koroway, from Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, live in tree houses, speak their own tribal language, and live off forest animals and plants.
Almost 3,000 members of the nomadic clan, whose people wear only banana leaves, were recorded for the first time in the country’s census this year.
Members of the tribe skilfully climb ladders to their wooden homes often as high as 164ft (50m) from the forest floor where they usually live in a family of up to eight. Homes are built at different heights depending on how well they get on with their fellow tribe members.
The horticultural tribesmen excel at hunting and fishing. Koroway arrows, each having a different name, and used for different types of prey. The large barbed arrow in the centre is made from cassowary leg bone and used for killing people. The one to the left of that has a four-pointed tip for fish. The one with the wide blunt tip is used for lizards, and the one with the broad bamboo tip is for wild pigs.
Until the late 1970s, when anthropologists embarked on a study of the tribe, the Korowai were unaware of the existence of any peoples other than themselves.
They have engaged in cannilbalism but anthropologists believe that exposure to the outside world has put an end to this practice in recent years. Korowai people mainly eat wild boar, deer, sago and bananas.
