Khakhua Culture
Liam Easley · May 28, 2020
"Hairstylist named Kevin Bacon killed, eaten by Grindr date from hell," "Moroccan woman 'killed boyfriend, cooked body and served it to construction workers in UAE,'" "Man ‘butchered’ and ate ex-girlfriend who dumped him," and "Russian 'cannibal' charged after human and animal remains found" are just a few headlines that appear when "cannibalism in news" is typed into a Google search. Each article was published in 2019 except for one from 2018 and one from 2020.
Once in a while, an article like these will come across our news feed or timeline. It is nothing new to hear about the taboo that is cannibalism, however, it’s nonetheless startling. Each of these stories have something in common: there's a question of the defendant's sanity. What drove them to commit such a heinous act? How does something like that cross a person's mind? In some cases, it’s in desperation. In others, it’s for revenge.
Modern cannibalism takes many forms, and it is possible in any society or environment. However, the question remains: is there a specific people or culture that practices cannibalism regularly or ritualistically?
The answer is hard to come by, but rumors are abounding in the jungles of Papua.
Cassowary painting by Houyem Abidi, 2020. According to the Korowai clan Paul Raffaele met in the jungle, human flesh tastes like cassowary, or küal.
Contrary to how movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" or "Bone Tomahawk" portray cannibal tribes, the Korowai people of Papua, Indonesia, do not live to seek your flesh. Their diet is not even mostly humans. In fact, they don't actually call their practice "cannibalism" because they don't recognize the person they consume as "human."
Here's how it works.
The Korowai people live life in the Stone Age, and they have not deviated from that period for around 10,000 years. It is said that a Korowai mountain god will destroy the world with an earthquake should they deviate from their lifestyle due to outside influence. Because of their primitive lifestyle, they obviously do not have the same delicacies that modern society has, such as modern technology or modern medicine.
The Korowai live in an area rampaged by malaria, anemia, tuberculosis and elephantiasis, but they have no way of identifying these illnesses. Instead, they believe in an evil spirit cast by witches that will eat its victim from within. These witches are known as khakhua. After a while, the witch will “shoot an invisible arrow” through the heart of its victim.
At this time, the victim will tell their clan who the khakhua is, and as the noun is masculine, the verdict is always male. There is a second step to the declaration process, and this occurs after the victim is buried. The deceased victim will be asked questions regarding the name of the khakhua in a medium-like approach and in several different ways.
Additionally, the finger and toenails of the the victim will be placed in the bark of a tree near the grave, and sharp objects will be placed in the soil. This is to ensure the khakhua will be harmed should he visit the grave.
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Once the khakhua is declared, the men from the victim's clan hunt him down and kill him. The tribe will then feast on the witch's flesh. If the khakhua is in the same clan as its victim, it will be sent to another clan to be killed and eaten.
“Revenge is part of our culture, so when the khakhua eats a person, the people eat the khakhua.” said Bailom, a Korowai tribesman, to Paul Raffaele, a writer for the Smithsonian Magazine.
Do the Korowai still practice khakhua culture?
Whether or not the Korowai still partake in cannibalism is unknown. There is no proof of any recorded eyewitness events that could show they still eat khakhua. However, there is much more to this that can be said.
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Currently, the likelihood of the Korowai still participating in cannibalism is slim. When Raffaele ventured out to the Korowai territory in 2006, tribesmen and self-proclaimed khakhua hunters showed Raffaele and his party skulls that once belonged to khakhua. However, no tests were done to find out if scuffs from tools or weapons were used on the bones to scrape off tissue, nor was a test run to find how old these bones were. The skulls could have been from anyone.
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Additionally, Raffaele writes of a six-year-old boy named Wawa who was convicted as a khakhua by his clan. Wawa and his uncle fled to Yafufla, but no other information about them has surfaced outside of several UK-based tabloids stating in October 2019 the now grown-up and college-educated Wawa would be returning to his former tribe to christianize them. This has not been confirmed by any trustworthy source.
It is possible that some Korowai clans claim to still practice cannibalism so that they can keep tourists coming to the area. Not many make their holiday destinations to the jungles of Papua, but those who seek answers to this very question do.
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While the clan that Raffaele visited claimed to still consume human flesh, other clans have claimed to have ceased the practice. According to Rupert Stasch, some Korowai people he studied in the mid-1990s claimed they had “given up” the practice due to strict and violent enforcement by Indonesian police and military. The intrusion of the Indonesian government in this affair started in the mid-1960s, even before Papua was officially part of Indonesia.
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An expedition to the Korowai territory in 2009 by Danna Harman concluded that “there is no firsthand, outsider account of [cannibalism].” Other recent expeditions have reached similar conclusions.
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There is one written record of khakhua hunting, and it resides in the book by Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries. It was written in 1987 by a Labülun Sendékh in van Enk's office in Yaniruma. In the text, the man wrote that a convicted khakhua named Didonalé was to be transported to another clan to be executed and eaten, but he escaped and was shot with arrows. He was flown to a nurse in Boma, Papua. Labülun Sendékh went with Didonalé and witnessed the operation to remove the arrowheads.
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Despite lack of evidence of modern cannibalistic practices, it can also be concluded that this practice was once deeply ingrained into the Korowai tribe. We just weren't able to discover them before they were subject to militaristic violence.
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Click here for the next article in this study.
References:
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Busse, M., & Faber, S. (2019, December 31). What's at stake in West Papua. Newsroom. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@ideasroom/2019/12/31/965329/whats-at-stake-in-west-papua#
Harman, Danna. (2009, July 30). 'So, do you really eat humans?'. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/1.5084170
Raffaele, P. (2006, September). Sleeping with cannibals. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sleeping-with-cannibals-128958913/?page=6
Raffaele, P. (2008). Among the cannibals. Harper Collins Publishers.
Stasch, R. (2001). Giving up homicide: Korowai experience of witches and police (West Papua). Oceania, 72(1), 33+. https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.wartburg.edu/apps/doc/A80325506/AONE?u=wartburgcoll&sid=AONE&xid=537e5dfa
Van Enk, G. J., & de Vries, L. (1997). The Korowai of Irian Jaya. Oxford University Press
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Articles Referenced:
Hairstylist named Kevin Bacon killed, eaten by Grindr date from hell: cops
Moroccan woman 'killed boyfriend, cooked body and served it to construction workers in UAE'
Man ‘butchered’ and ate ex-girlfriend who dumped him: prosecutor
Russian 'cannibal' charged after human and animal remains found