In the dense forest of Papúa (Melanesia, New Guinea), far from the coast, lives the Kombai tribe. They have been hiding of the world during generations, living of the hunting and gathering

There are roughly 4000 tribesmen. They have also been called the tree's people, that's because most of them lives in trees, sometimes reach up to 20 meters. It's to escape from the heat and mosquitoes, which is highly necessary when there're floods, and it's convenient in time of conflicts, because it protects them.

They hunt boars, fish, and other forest animals, using arcs, arrows and sometimes use dogs to track and kill them.

To cook the meat, they put stones to heat in fire, then wrapped the meat with big leaves and place the hot stones on top of the leaves, till it is cooked. But most of the time, they eat meat only when there're celebrations. Usually eats larvae of beetles, plants and starch.
                   

The starch is extracted from a sago palm that grows wild in the jungle. It takes a few hours to drain and dry some bushes of starch from the palm. A single tree could provide enough food to a family for 7 or 10 days

Some traditions are:

  Nose perforations with bones, sometime use bat eyes for these decorations, mainly for women.

  Men twist and wrapped their penis with leaves, to show off their capacity of assimilate pain. 

  Women wear skirts made of sago palm leaves and decorate their faces with a material consisting of ash, chalk and berry juice. 

  Both men and women use dog tooth necklaces.

Kombai occasionally, sacrifice a boar to solve conflicts between tribes and family or to be offered to their god Rafafu, women aren't allowed to be present in this process. After the sacrifice, no one can get into battle for the next two days, because Rafafu will be drinking the spilled blood of the pig.

Kombai believe in bad spirits, Suangi, it's said that Suangi eat their victims and devour the person's soul.

They also believe in evil men, supposed to be warlock, who ingest their victim's soul, they are called Khakhua-Kumu , and as a punishment the Kombais kill them and then eat them, because that will release their victims’ soul.

GALLERY

A DAY WITH KOMBAI PEOPLE

My time with the kombai people was an amazing experience. Once I arrived, they boarded me with weapons, because I couldn't get through, until they could assured I wasn't a threat. Then we went to the village to meet their lider. All they were  practically naked, the women wear some kind of skirt, and men like a rope on their hips. 

They took me to hunt, they run really fast, we catched a boar, and took it back to the village to cook it. It was great watch the process to cook the meat.  there was going to be a celebration. It was really fun watch them dance and yowling. The food, the part of the  meat was realy good, but the starch had a weird tasted, it wasn't so nice.

In summary, that was my day with Kombai people.