Culture of the World

Is the expression of grief displayed by someone who lost family members. Crying, goods times that we most often encounter. For the general public and especially mountian community center Wamena expressions of sadness due to loss of a family member not only to cry alone.

Cut Finger
Normally they would smear themselves with mud to a certain period. But what makes them different cultures with many tribal cultures in other areas are cut off their fingers.

Almost the same as what the Yakuza (the famous hard-line orangasasi in Japan) if they had violated rules set by the organization or fail in their mission. As an expression of remorse, they were obliged to cut off one of their fingers. For mountian community center, the cutting finger is conducted if the nearest family members such as husband, wife, father, mother, son, brother, or sister died.

This symbolizes the cutting finger pain and the pain of losing a beloved family member. The phrase is so profound, even to lose limbs. For the central mountains, the family has a very important role. For IDR Balim community togetherness in a family has its own values. "Węne opakima dapulik welaikarek mekehasik" or basic guidelines to live together in one family, one family name / clan, one honai (home), one tribe, one ancestor, one language, one history / origins, and so on "(When Looking Balim Life - it 7 - Hisage, Julian Joli, 2005). That is why they had to cut his finger if the family had died.

According to other information we collect, that the cutting finger is generally done by the mother. But do not close the possibility of cutting the finger by family members of the parent male or female. Cutting finger can also be interpreted as an attempt to prevent the 'recurrence' doom that has claimed the lives of someone in the grieving families.

A mother from Moni (a tribe in the area Paniai) we met explained that her little finger bitten by his mother when he was born. It had to be done by the mother for some children who were born before always died. With the right pinkie finger decided to have just the child she gave birth, the mother hopes that what happened to the children had not happened to the baby. This sounds very eksrim, but in fact this is so, Moni home mom we met have given many grandchildren and great-grandson to his mother.

Cutting finger done in various ways. There was a cut finger by using sharp instruments like knives, machetes or axes. Another way is to tie the finger with a rope for some time until the network becomes bound to die and then cut.

But now the culture of 'cut the finger' has now been abandoned. We rarely meet someone who did a few decades. Which we can still find today are those who never do tempo first. This is caused by the influence of religion who has signed up to a remote area in Papua.

source : many source