The Korowai tribe of Papuans lives within the dense jungle within the southeastern a part of the Indonesian province of Papua on the island of New Guinea. Until the Seventies, they didn’t know that there have been other people besides themselves.
The Korowai are sometimes called “the last cannibals on Earth” because they still practice eating their very own species. And not due to hunger, but for purely ritual reasons.
The Korowai lifestyle, even after almost 50 years of contact with advanced civilization, still stays almost primitive. They still hunt only with bow and arrow and wear almost no clothes. And their customs cause shock and confusion among the many world community.
From time to time, curious enthusiasts dare to go to the Papuan tribes, which aren’t particularly hospitable to strangers, and a few even manage to live amongst them for a while, observing their lifestyle.
Last 12 months, one such adventurer, Drew Binski, lived among the many Momuna tribe, neighbors of the Korowai. And they told him something interesting in regards to the Korowai cannibalism.
“I learned that Korowai do not eat humans for pleasure or for nutritional value,” he explained. “It's just a form of punishment. If you steal something, you will be burned at the stake and eaten.”
The Korowai also imagine that human bodies could be possessed by an evil demon called hakua, which “eats” an individual from the within and turns her or him right into a sorcerer.
The Korowai imagine that mysterious deaths corresponding to illnesses are brought on by Hakua, that are evil demons that take human form,” Drew explained. “It is said that Hakua disguise themselves as friends or family members in an attempt to gain the trust of their tribesmen so that they can later kill them.
“It is the tradition of the Korowai to eat any Hakua they encounter. This is to protect the tribe members. For them, it is part of a vengeful justice system.”
This is what happens: after someone's unnatural death, the shaman or shaman of the tribe examines the body of the deceased, after which, using special rituals, finds the person whose body has been possessed by the hakua demon.
It is believed that to stop further unnatural deaths within the tribe, this possessed person should be killed. The tribe collectively kills him after which eats his body.
In this case, the tribesmen don’t kill the possessed person so as to punish him. Ritual murder is seen as an act of mercy, freeing the possessed from the facility of his inner demon.
“By consuming haqua, the tribe believes that it destroys the evil spirit and prevents it from causing further harm. The killing of a haqua is considered a ceremonial and necessary act, done for the protection and well-being of the community.”
The body is eaten almost entirely, apart from the hair, nails and genitals. Children under the age of 13 aren’t allowed to eat the meat of possessed hakua because they’re considered too weak and susceptible to being possessed.
It is unknown whether the Korowai face unpleasant consequences of cannibalism, corresponding to the Kuru prion disease among the many other Papuan Fore tribe.
Kuru is brought on by the buildup of infectious, misfolded proteins called prions within the nervous system. The disease spreads through cannibalism of infected tissue (i.e., when an individual eats the human tissue of an infected person).
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