The Sawi or Sawuy are a tribal people of
Western New Guinea
Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. They were known to be
cannibal
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...
istic
headhunters as recently as the 1950s. They speak the
Sawi language, which belongs to the
Awyu language family.
Since then, many of Sawi have converted to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and the world's largest circular building made strictly from un-milled poles was constructed in 1972 as a Christian meeting place by the Sawi.
[Tucker (1983), p. 478] Christian missionary
Don Richardson who lived among the Sawi wrote a book about the experience called ''Peace Child''.
See also
*
Indigenous people of New Guinea
The indigenous peoples of West Papua in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Arch ...
References
Further reading
* ''Peace Child'' (1974)
*
External links
Never the Same Documentary about visit to the Sawi in 2012
Ethnic groups in Indonesia
Indigenous ethnic groups in Western New Guinea
Cannibalism in Oceania
Headhunting in New Guinea
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