Korowai's tribe kills people possessed by demons and eats them

Piupan Korowai tribe lives in a dense jungle in the south -eastern part of the Indonesian province of Papua on the island of New Guinea. Until the 1970s, they did not know that there were other people besides them.

Korowai are often called “last cannibals on earth” because they still practice eating their own kind. And not because of hunger, but only for ritual reasons.

The Corrowa lifestyle, even after almost 50 years of contact with advanced civilization, still remains almost primitive. They still hunt only with a bow and an arrow and wear almost without clothes. And their habits cause shock and stunning among the world community.

From time to time, fascinating enthusiasts are visited by Papuan tribes, which are not particularly warm to strangers, and some even manage to live among them for some time, observing their way of life.

Last year, one such adventurer named Drew Binski lived among the Momuna tribe, Korowai's neighbors. And they told him something fascinating about the practice of cannibalism Korowai.

“I learned that Korowai did not eat people for pleasure or their nutritional value,” he explained. “It's just a form of penalties.

Korowai also believe that people's bodies can be possessed by a bad demon named Hakua, who “eats” a person from the inside and turns him into a sorcerer.

Korowai believe that a mysterious death, such as diseases, are caused by a hook or bad demons that take on a human form, “he explained,” it is said that the hooka will change as friends or family members, trying to gain trust trust so that they can kill them later.

“The tradition of Korowai is to eat everyone who finds the hook.

This happens: after someone's unnatural death, the shaman or medicine of the tribe studies the body of the deceased, and then, with the assist of special rituals, finds a person whose body was possessed by demon Hakua.

It is believed that in order to prevent further unnatural death in the tribe, this possessed person must be killed. The tribe kills him collectively and then eats his body.

In this case, the tribes do not kill a possessed person to punish him. Ritual murder is seen as an act of mercy, releasing the possession of the power of the internal demon.

“Consuming Haqua, the tribe believes that they destroy the evil spirit and prevent him from causing further damage. Killing Haqua is considered a solemn and necessary action, made for the protection and well -being of the community.”

The body is consumed almost completely, only hair, nails and genitals are not consumed. Children under 13 years of age are forbidden to eat a possessed hooku meat because they are considered too faint and threatened with possession themselves.

It is not known if Korowai are dealing with the unpleasant consequences of cannibalism, such as the disease of the Prion hen among another Papuan tribe.

Kuru is caused by the accumulation of infectious, abnormal proteins called prions in the nervous system. The disease spreads through the cannibalism of infected tissue (i.e. when a person eats the human tissue of an infected person).