Kamoro Erotic

Kamoro country is the flat, tidal south coast of western New Guinea, running from Etna Bay east to the Mukumuga River. It is mangrove, mud, braided rivers and sago swamp, with the central mountains rising like a wall behind it. The Kamoro live with the tide rather than against it, and locally the whole way of life gets summed up in three words: river, canoe and sago. Families keep a home village but spend weeks at a time in camps up the rivers or along the beach. There they fell and pound sago palms, net fish and crabs, and split rotting mangrove logs for the shipworms inside, which are eaten raw and prized. Early explorers and Dutch officials called them Mimika. The name survives in Mimika Regency, which covers most of their land in what is now the Indonesian province of Central Papua.

Their language, Kamoro, belongs to the Asmat-Kamoro branch of the Trans-New Guinea family. Its nearest relatives are Sempan and the Asmat languages farther east along the same swampy coast. The Amungme, whose mountains rise directly inland, speak a different language entirely, and the line between lowland and highland is one of the sharpest in the region.

Catholic missionaries arrived under Dutch rule, and most Kamoro today are Catholic. That has not ended their older duties to the dead. Kamoro carvers are known for mbitoro, tall ancestor poles raised during major feasts, and for drums, shields and figures in a style related to Asmat work but clearly their own. The karapao is a boys' initiation feast for which an entire ceremonial house is built, and it remains one of the big communal events of coastal life.

The modern turning point came from the mountains. In 1967 Freeport signed its contract to mine copper in the highlands above Kamoro country. The lowland town of Timika has since grown into a city on Kamoro land, drawing settlers from across Indonesia until the Kamoro became a minority in their own regency. The company's port sits on their coast, and mine tailings travel down the Ajkwa River toward estuaries where they fish. The Kamoro and the Amungme are recognized as the two customary landowning peoples of the mine area. That status brings development money and no shortage of dispute, and it shapes how many Kamoro now talk about their land, their rivers and who gets to decide what happens to them.