Baliem valley
Coordinates: 4 ° 6 ′ S , 138 ° 57 ′ E
The Baliem Valley is a high valley in the middle of the central highlands of the Indonesian province of Papua in western New Guinea . The main town of the valley is Wamena .
Geographical location
The Baliem Valley was long known as the Grand Valley . Today the flowing river Baliem is named after. The valley lies at about 1600 m above sea level and extends over a width of about 12 kilometers with a longitudinal extension of about 50 kilometers. The valley runs from northwest to southeast. Marshy in many places, the river Mosaike is used for irrigation of allotment garden crops . In some places limestone barriers and sandstone hills characterize the landscape. In the southwest, the peaks reach up to 4750 m ( Trikora Crest ). Rapid tributaries from the mountains feed the Baliem. In the south-eastern part of the valley rises a limestone gorge littered with dolines and caves ( Gorge Baliem ).
About 50,000 people live in Tal, mostly Dani and Yali . Lani settle on the western mountain slopes . 750,000 Mountain Papuans move into clans in the surrounding highlands. Expeditions to the tribes are made from Wamena.
Discovery story
The Baliem Valley was discovered in 1938. The zoologist Richard Archbold identified happens to be an agriculturally used valley among the up to 4500 m high mountains surrounding jungle during a flight. The late discovery is mainly due to the undeveloped large parts of the island (even today settlement areas of the Korowai families are completely uncontacted). This is not surprising given that the Papuan jungle is considered to be the most impenetrable in the world. Due to the long untouched nature, authentic ways of life of the Dani and other tribes could be preserved until the middle of the last century. In 1954 the first missionary, Lloyd van Stone , arrived in this valley by parachute jump. Despite the industrial progress that has meanwhile started, people in the remote areas still live undeterred in the tradition of their ancestors.
tourism
Excursions to the Baliem Valley can be organized on foot and by taxi. We recommend a guided tour by a local who knows the area , for example to Sinatma , a small village with a Protestant mission station and (albeit abandoned) liana suspension bridge , Enalaga / Pugima or Akima (mummies) or to the former “battlefields” of the Dani (such as Dugum Dani ). Jiwika has a salt spring , Kantilola Cave karst caves . Danau Habbema , a high plateau southwest of Wamena, is a scenic area with a good panoramic view of the lakes and mountains of the surrounding high mountains.
Web links
- Anton Ploeg: Some comparative remarks about the Dani of the Baliem valley and the Dani at Bokondini. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 122, no. 2, Leiden 1966, pp. 255–273
- Karl-Heinz Kohl : Ethnology - the science of the culturally foreign: an introduction , 2nd expanded edition, CH Beck-Verlag, p. 60 ff.
- Roland Garve, Frank Nordhausen: Kirahé- the white stranger: On the way to the last primitive peoples , 2007 - 527 pages -, p. 207
literature
- SG Haberle, GS Hope, Y. DeFretes: Environmental Change in the Baliem Valley, Montane Irian Jaya, Republic of Indonesia. Journal of Biogeography, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 1991, pp. 25-40
- Matthiesen, Peter (1962). Under the Mountain Wall. New York; London; Victoria; Toronto; Aukland; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-025270-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Environment and cultural landscape (English - p. 42)
- ↑ Wamena - West Papua ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archbold's discovery flight
- ↑ Persona non grata ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
