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The Dani tribe welcome me in the traditional way the music you can hear is the Dani's welcome song, it lasted for many hours. They wanted to kill a pig in my honour but I persuaded them otherwise. Pigs are one of the main currencies in the Baliem Valley. They are very important in dowry bargaining. When a child is born in the sweet potato field, and the placenta is dug back into the soil, if the child is a girl she is betrothed to her husband, who on her reaching puberty will join her husband's other wives. When a woman gives birth to a still born child, the belief is that the spirit of the dead baby goes into the first born piglet of the dowry litter. The piglet will become sacred, and not slaughtered but adopted as a member of the family, the mother of the dead baby will even suckle the piglet. When a close member of a woman's family dies, the woman will cut a notch off her finger (a joint), to show physical loss, and indeed this also applies if she has a sacred pig that dies. The older women have stubs for fingers. The magic man determines ailments through dissection of a rat and through reading the entrails, bones of the dead ancestors are hung for good luck and to attract the good spirits in the village huts. I was lucky to sleep on the floor in the kitchen and feel the little light feet of rats running over me at night and squeaking in the corner. The hut was pretty smokey from the fire in the middle. The people were most hospitable and friendly towards me. - I ate some of my dry rations, but mainly sweet potato and washed down with smokey arabica coffee. I bathed in the stream and made a conduit for a power shower out of an old banana leaf, I was watched continuously, which meant that at night I would hang over the pit........ and pray I didn't fall backwards!! |
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