A Guidance to know the Mairasi tribe, one of the tribes in West Papua. The following is a discussion of the Mairasi tribe, starting with where they live, their culture, and other interesting information.
Mairasi Tribe Territory
The Mairasi tribe in West Papua lives in two different districts. Some of the Mairasi tribe live in the Kaimana district, and some live in the Wondama Bay district.
Some members of the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana live in the villages of Orai, Umbran, Matna, Sara, Kasira, Jamna Fata, and Wangatnau. In addition, several Mairasi tribe members settled in Tarwata, Morona, Faranyau, Lobo, Sarifan, Foroma Jaya, Warasi, and Lomira.
Some of the Mairasi tribe members in Wondama Bay live in the villages of Oya, Sararti, and Yabore. However, some members of the Mairasi tribe in Wondama Bay also live in Wosimo, Undurara, and Inyora.
Mairasi Tribe Clan
In their socio-cultural life, the Mairasi tribe in Wondama Bay and the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana have different clans. The Mairasi tribe in Wondama Bay has thirteen clans, while the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana has more than eighty clans.
Some of the Mairasi tribal clans in Wondama Bay are Sabarnau, Natama, Efanda, Payai, Aruba, Sasuru, Fet, Murai, Nealo, and Sibeda. As for the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana, several clans are Ulta, Orani, Jaisea, Ojangai, Inggrei, Tavuani, and Ratmanai.
Mairasi Tribe Language
With tribal members of around 2,500 people, the Mairasi tribe uses the Mairasi language in their daily life. Moreover, this language is spoken by most members of the Mairasi tribe who are in the east, west, and north of the Marsi village, Kaimana.
Based on dialect metric calculations, the Mairasi language has a high uniqueness. For your information, dialectometry is a statistical measure people use to see how many differences and similarities a language has. Through these calculations, the Mairasi language has a difference of 90% to 100%, making it quite unique.
Mairasi Tribe Cultural Products
The Mairasi tribe in Wondama Bay and the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana have their cultural products. Here’s the full review:
Mairasi Cultural Products in Kaimana
The Mairasi tribe from the Kaimana district has cultural products in the form of traditional dances and traditional songs. The traditional dance of the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana is called the Goyang Dance, or local people call it Evia Mamonggo. The Mairasi tribe performs this dance in Kaimana to welcome guests, enliven weddings, and when building houses.
Furthermore, people cannot perform this Evia Mamonggo arbitrarily. Every dance performance, whether for local, national, or international events, must first ask permission from the Mairasi ethnic head.
Next are the Mairasi tribe’s traditional songs. Members of the Mairasi tribe in Kaimana have four traditional songs: Bajeni, Sirosevi, Ewejere, and war songs. Bajeni is a song people sing at a party to ask the party master to give them water to drink. Next is Sirosevi. This song is sung by people while dancing on the stage.
Then the Ewejere is a traditional song from the Mairasi tribe that tells the physique or body of a woman who is a man’s dream. Next is the war song. The Mairasi people sing this song at the ceremony before they go to war.
Mairasi Cultural Products in Wondama Bay
One of the cultural products of the Mairasi tribe in Wondama Bay is the marriage system. The Mairasi tribe has an exchange marriage system which, in the Mairasi language, they call Ambrawai.
One example of this exchange marriage from the Mairasi tribe is when a woman from the Natama clan marries a man from the Fet clan. Due to the Ambrawai system, the Fet clan family should marry off their daughters to men from the Natama clan in return.
