Contact With Westerners
The first documented contact by Westerners with members of a band of Korowai took place on March 17, 1974. The expedition was co-led by anthropologist Peter Van Arsdale (now at the University of Denver), geographer Robert Mitton, and community developer Mark Grundhoefer. Thirty Korowai men were encountered on the south bank of the Eilanden River, approximately 12 miles east of its junction with the Kolff River and 10 miles north of the Becking River. A basic word list was generated and observations were recorded regarding such things as fire making techniques.
In the late 1970s, a few Christian (Dutch Protestant) missionaries began to live among the Korowai. Dea Sudarman, an Indonesian anthropologist, made several documentary films on the Korowai for Japanese television in the 1980s. In 1993, a film crew documented an anthropological study in the Dayo village area by the Smithsonian Institution of Korowai treehouse construction and the practice of cannibalism as a form of criminal justice. This resulted in the film Lords of the Garden. In 1996 a local Christian community was established, the members of it mainly originating from the neighbouring Kombai people. For a long time the Korowai have been considered exceptionally resistant to religious conversion; however, by the end of the 1990s the first converts to Christianity were baptized. In the autumn of 2003, a small team of Bible translators from Wycliffe/SIL moved to Yaniruma.
In May 2006, tour-guide Paul Raffaele led an Australian 60 Minutes crew to report on the people. After a few days' filming, the crew were allegedly approached by a man who claimed his 6-year old nephew Wa-Wa had been accused of being a Kakua (witch doctor), and was in danger of being cannibalised. The 60 Minutes crew declined to offer assistance. Paul Raffaele approached the rival Seven Network, who agreed to send a Today Tonight crew to remove Wa-Wa from the area. Before being able to gain access to them, the crew were deported by Indonesian authorities at the Papuan capital of Jayapura over visa issues.
In January–February 2011, the BBC documentary Human Planet commissioned the Korowai building of a treehouse 35m high. In the episode it was explained that the Korowai built this treehouse this high to escape from the floods, biting insects, and enemy tribes. In reality the local Korowai clan showed the BBC film crew three possible trees that a tree-house could be built in, and the BBC producer picked the tallest.
Read more about this topic: Korowai People
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