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New tribe discovered in Papua New Guinea


Still Waters

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A tribe of hunter gatherers living in trees in the remote forests of Indonesia's easternmost Papua region has been discovered for the first time by the country's census, an official said on Thursday.

The nomadic tribe, called Koroway, numbers about 3,000 people speaking their own language and living off animals and plants in the forest, census officials found during the country's 2010 census survey.

"Their houses are in trees, their life is stone age," said Suntono, head of Indonesia's statistics agency for the Papua region, adding the tribe built ladders to huts in tall trees.

After receiving reports from missionaries, census officials needed to walk for up to two weeks to find the tribe, after travelling by boat from the nearest permanent villages, but still only reached the fringes of their territory.

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Although I disagree with the "socialization" of indigenous tribes, I find it fascinating whenever a primitive tribe is discovered. I say let them be, nobody, except themselves, should decide whether to join the modern world or not.

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why do i get the feeling some church in texas is booking flights there as we speak?

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Thanks for posting this story Still Waters, :D

Stories like this fascinate me.

This is why I like UM, I never know what new and interesting things I'll learn. :yes:

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they'll be wearing Power Ranger T shirts and smoking crack in no time. I hope they boil the missionaries in a pot (and Im a christian...).

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I fear one day, like in the novel 'Brave New World', these tribes will become a kind of freak show for urban dwellers, who pay for guided tours to visit these people and watch them like how we watch animals in a zoo. Maybe they will even be kept in enclosures like those in animal reserves.

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I say let them be, nobody, except themselves, should decide whether to join the modern world or not.

I couldn't agree more.

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I'm gonna train them to be my army. They'll be known as the "Banana Hammocks".

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One day, I hope Earth can be left as a permanent nature preserve, an homage and testament to our heritage on the Motherworld. People like these would be the only people remaining on the Earth, in such a vision, all others having moved on to terraform new planets.

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One day, I hope Earth can be left as a permanent nature preserve, an homage and testament to our heritage on the Motherworld. People like these would be the only people remaining on the Earth, in such a vision, all others having moved on to terraform new planets.

:tu:

people like these work for their food and shelter

i like it

and the freedom :tu:

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Ahhhh.... A lost tribe of Swingers.

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:tu:

people like these work for their food and shelter

i like it

and the freedom :tu:

i work for my food and shelter, work me ass off really :w00t::devil:

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next thing you know they will have national geographic or discovery channel people down there to do a 2 hour documentary on their life.

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There are more than 2,500 tribes in Papua and all have different languages, Suntono added

unbelievable , why is it on one small island can endup with so many languages?

even if they spend time walking around the island, I'm sure they will meet each other and create common language right?

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Papua New Guinea is really an interesting place, so many new species of animals are being discovered there, and now a new tribe....fascinating island! :yes:

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unbelievable , why is it on one small island can endup with so many languages?

even if they spend time walking around the island, I'm sure they will meet each other and create common language right?

My guess as to why they have so many different languages is that the myriad of tribes are separated by geological features or by dense jungle. This tribe has all that it needs to survive in a relatively small area, so traveling around might not have been a top priority.

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unbelievable , why is it on one small island can endup with so many languages?

even if they spend time walking around the island, I'm sure they will meet each other and create common language right?

Not really, many people thier speak half a dozen languages or more.

The jungle/mountains seperates and prevents large scale movement of poeple and resouces over time and so there is comparativly little exchange, one "tribe" may live in a small valley 10 miles long and 6 wide, with the only way out at one end, and the nearest other tribe a 5 day walk away.

Each tribe is basicly self-sufficiant in its own region, so there is no real reason, barring marriage or warefare for them to go and meet other tribes, so a tribe might have thier own language, developed through hundreds or thousands of years of isolation and they might know one or two more relating to surrounding tribes but they dont meet or have the reason to meet more people and so there is no uniting language.

I read a book that stuidied papuan tribesmen (and women) and found that on average they had considerable higher average IQ's then westerners did. He put this down to them needed thier brain more, many of them have to learn a large number of languages from a very young age, learn a vast array of skill to live in the jungle. If your stupid, you die. Simple really, in the Western world stupid people can survive fine, they have easy jobs to to, special schooling and so over time they pass on this "lower level of inteligence".

He also posutalted that in Papua your survival is far more closely related to your level on inteligence, in Western cities, hisotricly and now, to a lesser extent your survivival depended on luck and natural immunity to disieases due to the closely packed population. So the ones who lived to pass on thier genes were those best suited to resisting ill health and notthose with the sharpest minds and best phisical condition.

Edited by Wyrdlight
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wonderful news. i wish we could leave them alone... but i fear that greed ,and true ignorance, will interfere.. did someone mention gold!?

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Not really, many people thier speak half a dozen languages or more.

The jungle/mountains seperates and prevents large scale movement of poeple and resouces over time and so there is comparativly little exchange, one "tribe" may live in a small valley 10 miles long and 6 wide, with the only way out at one end, and the nearest other tribe a 5 day walk away.

Each tribe is basicly self-sufficiant in its own region, so there is no real reason, barring marriage or warefare for them to go and meet other tribes, so a tribe might have thier own language, developed through hundreds or thousands of years of isolation and they might know one or two more relating to surrounding tribes but they dont meet or have the reason to meet more people and so there is no uniting language.

I read a book that stuidied papuan tribesmen (and women) and found that on average they had considerable higher average IQ's then westerners did. He put this down to them needed thier brain more, many of them have to learn a large number of languages from a very young age, learn a vast array of skill to live in the jungle. If your stupid, you die. Simple really, in the Western world stupid people can survive fine, they have easy jobs to to, special schooling and so over time they pass on this "lower level of inteligence".

He also posutalted that in Papua your survival is far more closely related to your level on inteligence, in Western cities, hisotricly and now, to a lesser extent your survivival depended on luck and natural immunity to disieases due to the closely packed population. So the ones who lived to pass on thier genes were those best suited to resisting ill health and notthose with the sharpest minds and best phisical condition.

Are you talking about "Guns, Germs, and Steel"? Because he never proved they have higher IQs, it was his personal opinion. Just thought I'd mention it. Not that I necessarily disagree.

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Although I disagree with the "socialization" of indigenous tribes, I find it fascinating whenever a primitive tribe is discovered. I say let them be, nobody, except themselves, should decide whether to join the modern world or not.

Although I agree with your statement, I would still love to see research conducted on this tribe. Who knows what kind of great new things we can learn.

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They better not socialize them, I want to go live with one of the tribes (have have wanted to since I was a child) I want to do it after a frew more yrs once I get my med degree, I want to temporarly live out in a tribe for a few months..yes I do know the risks are high. At the same time I really want to reconnect with nature and I feel that is only the true way.

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They better not socialize them, I want to go live with one of the tribes (have have wanted to since I was a child) I want to do it after a frew more yrs once I get my med degree, I want to temporarly live out in a tribe for a few months..yes I do know the risks are high. At the same time I really want to reconnect with nature and I feel that is only the true way.

If you want to get closer to nature, you can do that even here in the US. However, if you want to live with them to learn from them, that will take a lot longer than a few months...as you'll have to learn their language first ^_^

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Arch

Im already and have looked into lanaguages and whcih tribe specfically, and no I don't need to know their language a few basic things, but decent enough to get around, they can understand someone miming lol..they don't talk about politics and a lot of other crap..so I should catch on somewhat fast, for the fact I've studied other langauges as well. I will think around 6 months what I want to do, at least the first time, yes I want to do that because I want to learn from them ect..and you just can't get that here in the US..at least not what part Im in haha

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i dont think they have very complex languages as they have little use for most of the words we use, i heard of a tribe that only had words for the numbers 1 to 3 as they never needed to communicate high numbers.

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Kind of a shame they have been found, kind of makes me think that they will just come into the modern world, sure they may not have discovered it and possibly missing out. BUT! You can't miss what you haven't had /nods.

Kind of like the Americans and the Natives.

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