The Kombai Tribe

As I took a break from doing my assignments, I went to the living room to watch the television. An unfamiliar show welcomed me as I checked Discovery Channel, my favorite TV channel. The show was entitled "Living with the Kombai." It is a documentary about the Kombai Tribe, an indigenous group found in Papua, Indonesia. I love watching documentaries so much but not those about tribes, so I thought of switching to another channel. But I suddenly changed my mind when I saw where these people are living. They live in tree houses which are about 30-100 feet above the ground, which was the highest of all that I have seen (I had always wanted to live in tree houses :D). Feeling great of what I saw, I continued watching the show.

The kombai tribes live in tree houses for them to prevent raiding enemies and dangerous wild animals. Their main weapons are bows and arrows. It is an advantage for them to have long-range weapons because they can still attack and defend themselves while they are up at their tree houses. Another types of weapon that they use are the swords and shields. Their swords' blade is made up of steel while its handle is made up of wood.They make shields from the huge roots of trees (I forgot the name of the tree used in the show). They are oval in shape and are longer than the human body. They also paint their shields with white, black and red. The color black is from coal, the white color is from a type of clay found at river banks and I'm not sure where do they get the red color (they didn't mentioned it at the show). They also make small shields for the purpose of celebrations. To give you an idea of what their shield looks like, here are some pictures.

There is a part in the show where the Kombai tribe had a conflict with a neighboring tribe, the Korowai tribe. Is has been mentioned that a Kombai stole the wife of a Korowai and he was killed for doing such. The family of the killed man requested a pig in exchange of the life that the Korowai had taken. Both tribes use pigs as their currencies. A compensation or payment in the form of pigs usually ends the conflict, but days passed and no pigs were received by the Kombai. In this case, they will also take the life of the man that killed their relative. So sad, but it's justice for them.

I'm really thankful that I have watched this show. Not only that I have learned many things from it, but it also helped me with this blog. :D 

Source: "Living with the Kombai" (TV Show)

Miranda, Gerald Kim T.

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