3218 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Morning Star flag

In 1949, the Netherlands recognised Indonesian sovereignty over the Dutch East Indies with the exception of Dutch New Guinea, because Western New Guinea is geographically very different to Indonesia and the people also very ethnically different. A national parliament was elected in 1961 and the Morning Star flag raised on 1 December, with independence planned in 9 years time. In 1962, the Dutch handed over the territory to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority, until 1963, when Indonesia took control.

2003 PAPUA NEW GUINEEA (Central) - Students from Kwikila at Port Moresby National High School Culture Day

The culture of Papua New Guinea is many-sided and complex. It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more.

1610 PAPUA NEW GUINEA (Milne Bay) - A man from Trobriand Islands

The Trobriand Islands are an archipelago of coral atolls off the eastern coast of New Guinea. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of Kiriwina. Other major islands in the group are Kaileuna, Vakuta and Kitava. The people of the area are mostly subsistence horticulturalists who live in traditional settlements. The social structure is based on matrilineal clans. People participate in the regional circuit of exchange of shells called kula, sailing to visit trade partners on seagoing canoes. When inter-group warfare was forbidden by colonial rulers, the islanders developed a unique, aggressive form of cricket.

1567 PAPUA NEW GUINEA (East New Britain) - The Warwagira & Mask Festival

The Warwagira & Mask Festival was introduced in 1995 and is staged in Kokopo as an annual national event to promote the Mask Cultures of East New Britain, New Ireland and other areas in PNG where masks are significant projections of cultural expression. The festival is a five-day extravaganza of cultural dancing, ritual performance, display, story-telling and exchange - with a variety of arts and crafts. Some of the masks are many decades old, and many of them are sacred. They aren't meant to be viewed or transported to alien places, hence the ceremonial Kinavai, which acts as a cleansing or appeasement ritual for the broken taboos and to pay respects to the Tolai people.

0745, 1346, 1389 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Dani Tribe in Baliem Valley

Posted on 16.07.2013, 30.11.2014, and 01.01.2015
The Dani (also spelled Ndani) are a people from the Grand Valley of the Baliem River, a broad, temperate plain lying 1.800m above the tropical jungles of Papua, of the island of New Guinea. They are one of the most numerous tribes in the highlands, and simultaneously one of the most well-known, despite the fact that were discovered only in 1938. At least 50.000 Dani live on the valley floor, and another 50.000 inhabit scattered settlements along the steep-sided valleys around the Grand Valley. Temperature is mild, rainfall moderate, wildlife harmless and disease rare, so it can said that this is one of the world's most pleasant corners. Sweet potatoes are important in their culture as food, but also as the most important tool used in bartering, especially in dowries, and this is reflected in the over seventy different names used for this vegetable. They grow also ginger, taro, cucumber, carrot, greens, yam, and a single fruit: banana. As most Papuans, they consider pigs the most important living creatures besides people. Pigs mean wealth and social importance. Only the possession of several wives is as important and usually a man who has many pigs will have more than one wife.

Their tools are made of stone and bone, wood and bamboo. A few of the more exotic materials, such as seashells, furs, feathers and the finest woods, reach the Grand Valley along the native trade routes. Metals, and even pottery, were unknown to the Dani, but despite their primitive tools, their houses and gardens are complex. Their settlements are collections of compounds enclosed by a stockade, within which are four kinds of structures, arranged according to a traditional pattern. At one end of the oval courtyard is the circular domed men’s house. On both sides were long rectangular family or cooking houses and smaller circular structures in which each woman slept with certain smaller children and her husband, when he was not in the men’s house. Finally there are houses divided into stables where the pigs were kept. More about their houses I wrote here.

 

The men only wear long and thin sheaths for penis (kotekas), and the women short skirts woven from orchid fibers, decorated with straw, and woven bags (noken) across their backs. Their fondness for "dressing up" shows the most during the time of war, when put boar tusks in their noses, and headdresses made of Paradise birds feathers. Dani occupied one of the most fertile parts of Papua, so they often had to fight for their territory. Actually ritual small-scale warfare between rival villages is integral to their traditional culture, with much time spent preparing weapons, engaging in both mock and real battle, and treating any resulting injuries. Some sources say that they practiced cannibalism, others the opposite. Anyway, they were the most dreaded head-hunting tribe on the island. The tribe is also notorious for the custom that if someone dies in the village, each of his female relatives will have a segment of their finger cut off.

1367 PAPUA NEW GUINEA (East New Britain) - Tavurvur volcano

Tavurvur is an active stratovolcano that lies near Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago. It is a sub-vent of the Rabaul caldera and lies on the eastern rim of the larger feature. An eruption of the volcano largely destroyed the nearby town of Rabaul in 1994. It is the most active volcano in Rabaul caldera, and the latest eruption began on 29 August 2014, prompting concerns over disruption of flights in Australian airspace due to the large ash clouds. Communities near the volcano were evacuated, while residents of the town of Rabaul were advised to remain indoors to avoid falling ash.

0386 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Traditional huts in Papua

The traditional houses of each ethnic group are different, with its own characteristics, primarily due to the environment, but also to the lifestyle and to the social structure. Therefore the 300 distinct native ethnic groups who live in the more than 17,500 islands which form Indonesia have a very diverse range of traditional housing, so it wasn't easy to find information about the houses in the picture, especially that the explanation is very vague. "A traditional hut in an Indonesian mountain village". Which mountain on which island?

0287 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Young warriors of Yali tribe

Yanita says that in Indonesia are (over) 300 tribes, and she is right. So far I have postcards with two of them, Dayak (from Borneo island) and Asmat (from New Guinea island), to whom is added this by now, Yali, also from New Guinea island, more precisely from Papua region, the Indonesian western half of the island. Therefore I need "only" still (over) 297 postcards to cover all native ethnic groups to this country. I don't think that I will manage to do so. Anyway, not in the next quarter century.

0247 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Asmat warriors

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2, i.e. about as Germany, Poland, Austria and Switzerland together. From geographical point of view, it's located in the north of the continent of Sahul (the Australia–New Guinea continent), also known as Greater Australia, but also in Melanesia, sometimes being considered the easternmost island of the Malay archipelago. From geological point of view, in last 96 million years Australia and New Guinea were a single, continuous landmass, until about 8,000 and 6,500 BC, when the lowlands in the north of Australia were flooded by the sea, separating New Guinea and the continent.