Papua First Contact expedition – The best of all

Papua New Guinea & West Papua (Indonesia)

In Papua you can still find absolutely primitive cultures whose development ended in the Neolithic period (younger Stone Age). Most of these tribes live in the western part of the island, but surprisingly, they can be found, even in the most inaccessible parts of Papua New Guinea. Even the most detailed pilot maps of the island contain white places, which bear the following writings: „Relief data incomplete“ or „We believed not exceed 5300 ft“.

Simbu tribe expedition – 2004

First contact expeditions head towards these “remote areas”. In 2004, I came to the Simba tribe which had been discovered only few years earlier – in 1999. I spent several wonderful weeks with people from this tribe. They live deep in the mountains. Nothing has ever been published about the Simba tribe, and I don’t want to publish anything in greater detail about it either.

Unnamed tribe expedition – 2005

In 2005 I was lucky enough to find a tribe in the jungle that has not been recorded yet. Thus, it has not been officially discovered. I don’t claim that I am the first one to discover these people; I only assert that no one has ever published anything about them to date. I don’t include here any – even an approximation – as to the location of this “unnamed” tribe. I only decided to publish photos and possibly a description of their customs, similarly as I did with the Simba tribe.

Let’s call this tribe “Unda” (like a unique tribe). Its tribesmen walk around completely naked, or they wear “egg” koteks, which I have not even heard of yet. The women also walked naked only two years ago, but because of contact with a neighboring tribe which was slowly starting to civilize, some women began to wear short skirts. It is one of the only two known Papuan tribes that are naked.

So far this was only known about the Asmat tribe. Other new tribes can be still discovered in the basin of the Mamberamo River. It is difficult to say whether there are are any other tree people tribes behind the pacification line, as only few people manage to penetrate it. Until now, Papua was the wildest area in the entire world.

Cave people – 2006

The people absolutely untouched by our civilization

Cave people were discovered very recently – in the beginning of February 2006. Petr Jahoda left for this expedition together with Australian-Austrian team in May 2006. With the use of helicopters, the expedition reached the place of the alleged dwellings of the Cave people. The initial information showed to be untrue. However, the expedition therefore set an alternative goal, Moii tribe.

Missionaries came to this tribe and settled in its territory mere five years ago. Moii tribe is very isolated; it would be practically impossible to reach without the use of helicopters.

Moii tribe

The members of the Moii tribe, men and women, decorate their nasal partitions with casuar bones. Men wear kotekas and women only short skirts. Moii smoke unusual bamboo pipes. They are not approachable people. In addition, they are moody. Despite these obstacles, we managed to get on friendly terms with them at least for short periods of time. We enjoyed wonderful moments during the stay at this tribe.

The most interesting finding was the culture of the Moii tribe. They protect their living environment as well as maintain excellent conditions for manufacturing and trading goods. So far, we have not seen anything like this at any „primitive“ tribe.

This expedition brought many new pieces of knowledge and can be evaluated as highly successful.

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