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| Raffaele, Paul. 1996August. The people that time forgot. Readers Digest "100-107. | to Top |
The Korowai staple food is a flour made from the pith of sago palm. Lali had spent her day in the forest hacking down sago palm with a hand ax- which defines an entire epoch of human existence, the Stone Age-a chunk of stone sharpened at one end and lashed with vine to a wooden handle. She'd pummeled the pith to a pulp, then sluiced it with water to produce a dough molded into bite-size pieces.
After grilling several chunks, Agoos eats them with gusto. Given a piece, I find it tastes like warm raw flour, clogging my throat, unti lI flush it down with river watr.The Korowai have only a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, using plants and bark to bind wounds and ritual to spirit away pain.
This results in a terrible death rate from accidents, disease and war. Life expectancy is short; most die before they reach 35, according to Gerrit van Enk, a Dutch missionary who spent several years with the tribe and co-authored The Korowai of Irian Jaya. Many children do not last out their first year; almost none receive names until they are about 18 months old. Anothr killer is cannibalism. The war chief tells me of men and women the clan killed and ate for stealing pigs or committing adultery. A woman once broke a taboo by shouting evil words at him. "I shot her full of arrows, and we ate her," he says. Eating humans is not common - there would be no Korowai left if it were. The most recent cannibal feast Agoos experience took place a coupld of years ago. he arrived as it was ending. "My friends were finishing off a man's arm," he says.« « Updated: Tuesday, October 13, 2009.
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