The tribe sleeps with the ancestral dried, smoked mummy

Dani tribe people on the Indonesian plateau have the tradition of embalming the ancestors and heroes by smoking continuously until the bones are dried out.

Hugging mummies with hundreds of years of ancestry, Chief Eli Mabel shared about a long tradition still circulating in Dani's community on Papua plateau in Indonesia, Yahoo on August 15 reported.

The black crumpled remains that he is hugging are Agat Mamete Mabel, the head of the remote village in Papua province 250 years ago. After his death, Agat's corpse was marinated, then preserved with smoke and animal fat according to custom to honor important leaders and local heroes of Dani.

Over 9 generations, Agat's descendant, Eli, continues to be the chief of the village of Wogi, a small isolated village outside Wamena, the largest town in the Papua plateau. The only way to go to the village is to go hiking and canoeing.

Chief Eli hugged the ancestral mummy.(Photo: AFP).

Eli did not know exactly Agat's age but shared his ancestor was the last person in the village to be buried in this smoked custom. Christian and Muslim missionaries encouraged the tribe to bury their dead, causing traditional burial ways to disappear over time. But Eli is determined to preserve the ancient ritual for generations to come."We have to protect our culture, including rituals with mummies," Eli said.

Mummies are decorated with boar teeth dangling around the skull, hats with feathers attached to a hut called "honai" . Some assigned villagers look after this large dome-shaped tent and burn fire all year round to make sure the mummy is always dry.

The task of taking care of the mummy taken by the villagers took turns. The one who looks right now is Eli. Many nights he slept alone in a tent to make sure his ancestors were not damaged. Eli hopes his children will be in charge of maintaining customs.

"I told the children to look after the mummy in the future ," Eli said. Of his four children, some moved to the more populated central part of Indonesia.

In addition, in the Dani tribe, when a loved one in the family dies, the remaining people will show their sadness by cutting off a finger. Finger amputation is one of the cultural traits circulated by people in the tribes of Dani, Papua, and Indonesia from generation to generation.

However, this finger cut is only done for most women in the tribe, a ritual that is judged cruel and terrible.

This ceremony has been banned by the Indonesian government in recent years.(Photo: Odd).

According to the beliefs of the Dani tribe, if the deceased lives as a strong person, when they die, their souls also contain strength and will harass the living. Therefore, to appease the souls of the dead and make them feel secure to escape, women with relatives will have to cut their fingers.

Before cutting, your fingers will be fastened for 30 minutes and allowed to dry. After that, they will be burned and the ash of these fingers will be buried in a special area.

Some people also explain that physical pain from cutting fingers represents mental pain, when we lose loved ones. The person who performs the cutting of the finger will be the father, mother or sibling. In another strange ceremony, the babies were cut by their fingers in the hope that they would live longer.

The Dani people in Papua province live separately from the outside world until the end of the 20th century. Their land in the Baliem valley is very difficult to access due to the rugged steep slopes and dense plateau of forests. Today, this land is still one of the poorest places in Indonesia.