New Guinea and the tribe of the tuna

Near the northern shores of Australia, among the spaces Pacific Ocean is the second largest after Greenland island of the world - New Guinea.

New Guinea can be called a real island of treasures

In our imagination, New Guinea is inseparably linked with the name of the Russian explorer M.M. Miklukho-Maklai. He lived for a long time on his north-eastern coast, which is now called the Maklai Coast.

New Guinea can be called a real "island of treasures". Thanks to its humid tropical climate, the island is covered with luxurious woody vegetation from coconut and sago palms, sandalwood, mangrove and breadfruit trees, almost impassable jungle. In the bowels of the island of New Guinea, large deposits of coal were found, oil, iron and copper ore, platinum, gold and silver.

Although the island of New Guinea was discovered by Europeans as far back as 1526 and since that time was under their domination, nevertheless, a significant area of its central mountainous part remained unexplored. It was called the "Country of broken bottles", because the inaccessible mountains with steep rocks and sharp peaks from a bird's eye view resemble a huge mountain of broken bottles. Only in 1954 the French expedition reached this region for the first time. Surprisingly, this mountain region turned out to be a fairly densely populated by an unknown tribe of the Dan. The tribe of the tuna for its development was in the Stone Age. The inhabitants of this remote area had no idea about the metal. They used only stone and wooden tools.

Seeing the white people, the tribe of the tuna became confused. It turns out that when they idolized the Sun, they had already been waiting for some messengers from him. Watching during the Second World War, the planes that sometimes flew over the island of New Guinea, the duna thought it was the Sun's messengers flying. The tribe of the tuna calmed down only when it found out that it met with the same as they, though with a different skin color, inhabitants of the Earth. Being among the duna, the expedition members got acquainted with their life and customs.

The main tools of the tribe of the Dan were a stone ax and a stone knife. The fire was extracted by friction. The main wealth by which the human condition was determined was the pig. The richest dunas had about a dozen pigs. The main occupation of the tuna tribe is the cultivation of sweet potato (sweet potatoes) and the production of sugared palm flour from fruit - a substance similar to starch. All works of the tribe of the tuna are performed by women who, however, do not have equal rights with men. They, for example, are not allowed to paint their faces, tattoo the body. This is the privilege of men only! The men of the Dun tribe are mainly engaged in hunting. Most often, it boils down to placing networks on flying foxes - animals similar to bats, but the size of the cat and the wingspan of up to 1,5 m. The men of the Dun tribe, in addition, plow the land with sticks for crops of sweet potato.

The wars that arise between the tribes of the tuna on the island of New Guinea, are never lengthy. Each war ends, usually, the first killed soldier. The detachment to which the murdered belonged was considered defeated.

Each tribe of the dun, as a rule, has two leaders: one leads during the war, the second - during the peace period. Nevertheless, the laws here are democratic: on their own, without the participation of all the men of the tribe, the leaders do not decide anything.

Life, beliefs and customs of all the tribes of the tuna of the island of New Guinea are marked by considerable diversity. They deify the phenomena of nature, and the whole world for them is populated by kind and evil spirits, which symbolize the different forces of nature. To appease the spirits, they are offered sacrifices; mostly the blood of a pig, and the meat is eaten by people in order to not vainly disappear. Almost in all the tribes of the tuna of the island of New Guinea, men live in the largest huts, separately from women and children.

Tools