“Unnatural” deaths, such as accidents or murders, are a matter for the police and coroners in our society.
But by the ancient laws of the Korowai people of Papua, Indonesia, unnatural deaths are investigated by the tribal shaman or witch doctor. After the shaman has investigated the incident, he will often order an act of ritual cannibalism to fix the problem.
The Korowai believe that shadowy evil spirits called “khakhua” live alongside us, sometimes taking possession of human bodies in order to carry out their demonic acts. “When a tribe member dies unnaturally, it is often attributed to the actions of a khakhua,” explains the Cultures and Peoples of the World podcast.
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The first recorded contact between Korowai people and Western explorers took place in March 1974
(Image: Paul Raffaele/REX/Shutterstock)
“The Korowai perceive these spirits as threats not only to the individual, but to the entire community.” The only way to protect the tribe from more unnatural deaths, the Korowai believe, is to eliminate the person that has been “possessed” by the demon.
First, the “possessed” person is identified, through a process or “spiritual discernment and consultation,” then they are ritually killed by the entire tribe.
Then begins the second part of the ritual – which has earned the Korowai the title of “the last cannibal tribe on Earth.”
They live the way our distant ancestors did
(Image: E Baccega/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock)
After the suspected khakhua has been killed, their body is butchered and eaten. “This act is not driven by a need for physical sustenance, but is a deeply symbolic gesture,” the podcasters explain. “By consuming the khakhua, the tribe believes they are annihilating the malevolent spirit and preventing it from causing further harm.”
The tribespeople don’t kill the possessed person to punish them. The ritual murder is seen as an act of mercy, freeing them from the grip of the demon within.
“The killing of a khakhua is considered a solemn and necessary act, performed to safeguard the community’s well-being,” the podcast added.
The Korowai lives in a world where the spiritual and material worlds are one and the same
(Image: Paul Raffaele/REX/Shutterstock)
The Korowai’s hunter-gatherer way of life is thought to date back for tens of thousands of years. According to The Daily Telegraph, “Until the late 1970s, when anthropologists embarked on a study of the tribe, the Korowai were unaware of the existence of any peoples other than themselves”.
A BBC camera crew, who visited them in 2007, reported that the Korowai saw them as “white ghosts” who had come to warn them about the end of the world.
The Korowai’s world is, in a way, coming to an end. Every day, the modern world edges a little closer to their isolated territory, as more of the rainforest they have inhabited for millennia is cleared for farmland.
Climate change, too, complicates their ability to sustain their strange and incredibly ancient way of life.
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