Morkai

Morkai is a tribe that lives around the Tabibuga Station of

Jimi District Jimi District is a district of the Jiwaka Province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Tabibuga. The population of the district was 71,379 at the 2011 census. Before May 2012, it was part of the Western Highlands Province. It is home to the Jimi ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. The tribe is subdivided into the smaller clans: Kimbaka, Keska, Galeboka, Maika, Nipka and Parka. The Tabibuga Station stands on Galemboka's and Kimbaka's land mass. The Morkai tribe speaks the

Narak language Narak is a Trans–New Guinea language of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of ...

. There is no intermarriage between the Kimbaka - Keska and Galemboka clans, but there is marriage between the rest of the clans. The normal livelihood of Morkai is

subsistence agriculture Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occu ...

. Their main staple food is kaukau (

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

), with other seasonal food such as

taro Taro (; ''Colocasia esculenta'') is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a ...

, yams and

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

s. Mareta (red panda-nut) is a popular

cash crop A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate a marketed crop from a staple crop ("subsi ...

and is also mainly used for exchanges and

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry, bride-wealth, bride service or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dowry ...

gifts. Pigs are a wide form of livestock wealth. Pigs are also traded for cash or used in exchange for compensation payments and bride price payments. Also pigs are slaughtered for ceremonial activities. {{authority control Ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea