Papua New Guinea

Region of Upper Kariwari

The areas covered by the Cruz Mayor Expedition are shown in the following map:

Location:

The zone of the Upper Karawari, tributary river of the Sepik, also comprises the Krosmerim river, Arafundi river and other minor ones; it borders on the Central Mountain Range.

Characteristics:

Although there exist important swampy areas; the one of our interest is the one comprised closer to the grottoes, this means: alternation between valleys and mountains from 200 to 300 meters high; covered by a primary rainforest with an important biodiversity that has been subject of studies yet.

In the Upper Kariwari the terrain is rugged, with narrow valleys whose walls almost vertical reach between 200 and 300 meters of height. The vegetation is formed mainly by a tropical forest of low heights that nearly covers these mountains completely. At the time of the discovery Europe, the Sepik region had a population of 300,000 to 500,000 people that spoke 200 different languages and at least double number of dialects (Laycock 1973:54). Despite this diversity the Sepik province has been less studied anthropologically than other regions of Papua New Guinea, and these studies have been concentrated principally on those groups that occupy the coastal region or the intermediate zone, while little or nothing is known about those inhabitants of the Interior Sepik and the Upper area of the Kariwari.