Papua (Irian Jaya)

The western half of New Guinea, the world's second largest island after Greenland, is the largest of the provinces in Indonesia: a quarter of the entire country. However, with less than two million inhabitants, it represents only 1% of the population, and its average density (4 per km2) is not the one hundredth that of Java. has uneven distribution of men: the mighty mountains and the northern highlands, which rise to 5039 m in Puncak Jaya (highest peak on the island, and Southeast Asia), concentrated most indigenous designated under the name of Papuans, although they have always lived divided into dozens of people relatively isolated and each using their own language. Practicing for millennia slash and burn agriculture related to gardening, they live on sweet potatoes, yams, taro, corn, the main pig farming is also only sign of wealth.

Irian Jaya is also the land of "Papuan coast" which are probably the people most friendly and most hospitable of the Indonesian archipelago. All the coastal tribes of Irian Jaya revealed through the ages their fantastic abilities of sailors. The Asmat are probably the most famous inhabitants of Irian Jaya. They carved out a reputation as headhunters long before the arrival of Westerners in the region but now it is their artistic heritage, considered one of the richest in the world, which earned them an international reputation. For centuries the Asmat were obsessed by an overriding need to appease ancestral spirits and realized to achieve a multitude of objects such as shields, headdresses, canoes, drums, figurines ... Asmat tribes in the region are divided into two main groups, those living near the coast and those living inland. Not only are their dialects, but also their lifestyle, their social structure and their ceremonies are different.