It looks like an archeological piece, but it was made in the past century in the Dani tribe, which occupies (but not owns) the lands surrounding the Baliem Valley, in the heart of the West Papua’s Highlands, under Indonesian government.
The valley become accessible to Westerns only in the 1930s by hazard and the only link with the rest of the world is the airfield build during WWII, still the lonely one even in the nearby valleys. There aren’t any real roads heading to the coast or to other Papua’s regions.
North Baliem Valley Tracks, it ends under the first scope, where you should continue on trails to Yogosimo and other valleys.
The mountain’s peak are between 3500 and 4700 m., while the valley is 1800m and wide, opening in some minors and closed valley, with a unique paved road just nearby Wamena airfield, where there is also the regional market, the other part are connected by gravel road, if possible.
Actually all the populations move by foot, even from one valley to another, among a wide trail web with unstable bridges or fords.
A villager walking back from Wamena market along the unique pavel road of Baliem Valley.
Yogosimo is an hut set spread of different ridges. Here the Dani people have been able to adapt their traditions and society to the innovations brought by colonizers.
Among the traditional tools there is this cross-cutting-edge axe, rather for workers than offenders, it was used also in traditional rituals, mainly in funeral ones. As a matter of fact it is tradition that the widow or the mother cut the first phalange during the funeral ritual.
The cutting efficency is given by its cross-cutting edge joined by the heavy load of the stone, a unique corpe of 2cm depth, large 6cm and long 18.
The stone is set in an hard wood, cutted in the twining, in order to support the heavy push with this outline.
Then it is assembled with natural fibers, in this case similar to rattan, probably rotang or sago palm, and it’s completed with a natural tie in argil and grass.