The Dani tribe is a native tribe of West Papua that is well known throughout the world. The existence of this tribe has been widely known, even studied by various parties from inside and outside Indonesia. The Dani tribe lives in the Baliem Valley.
The Baliem vale is found within the central mountains of island. The altitude is 1,650 meters above sea level (masl). The famous tribe that inhabits this valley is the Dani Tribe. This tribe is known for its men wearing koteka.
During Dutch rule, this valley was given the name ‘Grote Valley’ or ‘Great Valley’. In their culture, the people who live in the Baliem Valley call themselves the Hubula people or the Balim people.
The term Dani comes from ‘Ndani’, this term comes from the Moni language which means ‘East of the Rising Sun’. The Moni tribe lives in the mountains west of the Baliem Valley, this term “ndani” they use to refers to people or communities living in the east of their territory.
In its later development, the name Dani was popularized by M. V. Strilling in 1926, when he was with a joint Dutch and American team on an expedition in the central mountains of West Papua.
The Dani Tribe is a Hard-tempered Tribe in West Papua
Since then, anthropologists have referred to the ‘Dani tribe’ for all the people living in the central mountains of West Papua from the eastern part of the Bidogai Valley to the southern tip of the Baliem Valley.
Since the opening of Wamena City in 1956, many people from Central Mamberamo have migrated to Wamena City and since then they have started calling themselves the Lani Tribe. Perhaps to distinguish themselves from the Baliem Valley people, whom they name the Dani.
The Dani tribe is known as a tribe with a strong temperament and is very fond of war. But in fact, the Dani Tribe is very friendly, has many abilities in the arts, they even love to sing.
However, the Dani people have a lot of tenderness. The Dani have lived in the Baliem valley in the central mountains of West Papua for thousands of years. They generally live farming sweet potatoes and hunting wild animals for food.
This lifestyle was known by past researchers through several discoveries in the form of stone axes and agricultural fields around the Baliem Valley area. Along with the development of the era, animal husbandry is now an activity of choice for the Dani Tribe.
In terms of the kinship system, the Dani tribe is not too complicated, it’s just that over time, this system has undergone many changes. The Dani does not recognize a nuclear family system where one house only contains a father, mother, and children.
Family Division Scheme in the Dani Tribe
In the West Papua, the Dani is a communal people who live in one community. Therefore, the kinship system is a group, where they divide the family into groups living in one area of the house called Silimo.
So, one Silimo can contain 3 to 4 small families living together. This collection of several Silimos will become a village, then a collection of several villages will become a clan.
Finally, these clans are intertwined into a single Dani tribe, and they live scattered throughout the Baliem Valley in the central mountains of West Papua to Puncak Jayawijaya.
The many networks of family relationships in the Dani make disputes unavoidable. Wars between clans, villages, or families are very common. Especially when we remember that the Dani Tribe is a tribe that is very fond of war.
Now, wars are rare, and the resolution of problems has been diverted into monetary compensation for the aggrieved parties. The life of the Dani tribe has not experienced much modernization. Many ancient traditions they still maintain today.
Habits and Traditional Houses
They still use clothes, traditional houses, lifestyle, even the native language even though they are familiar with modern things. The Dani tribe still wears the koteka and women also prefer to be shirtless in their daily lives.
Every tribe in West Papua lives in a special house, like the Dani who still live in Honai (a typical Dani house with thatched roofs, wooden walls, and mushroom-shaped) and the native Dani language is still their main language, although they can also speak Indonesian.
We will get a lot of local wisdom from their lives. Indeed, their lives are still far from modern, but in some ways, the Dani are much wiser than those of us who often claim to have a modern culture.
Unlike other regions in West Papua, the Dani has a unique bathing habit where they like to bathe during the day when the sun is high. For Dani, the morning is the time to work.
According to a researcher from the Papua Archaeological Center, Hari Suroto, the bathing habit of the Dani Tribe who live in a village near the Baliem River is caused by the air temperature during the day which feels warm and not as cold as in the morning.
Usually, they are active in the garden planting taro and sweet potatoes. After gardening, they bathe in the river. Of the Dani tribe living in the Baliem valley, West Papua has a lot of diversity that must be preserved.
