The Inyay, Ewa and Yimas Tribes

The people of the Upper Kariwari zone are divided in three main tribes: the Inyait, the Ewa and the Yimas whose language is currently spoken by 250 people only and that in former times occupied the mountains behind the Krosmeri river. These mountains of calcium carbonate give shelter to dense woods that grow on their steep hillsides, where are located uncountable caverns and rocky shelters, which in the past served as abode to these hunter-gatherers. Many of these caves were holly places of cult which served the functions of the "house tamberan" or house for the spirits where they celebrated their initiation rituals and stored the head trophies of their enemies and other sacred objects. Others served as burial place in which they were buried in clay vessels. The Yimas were the first settlers to abandon this location and establish themselves in the low lands and nowadays they have mixed each other with other emigrants of the Sepik and the fluvial part of the Blackwarter river to the West.

Little is known about them or from where these nations arrived. Less even about when the Inyai-Ewa groups arrived and their relations with the groups of mid Sepik, since it seems that both nations only in very recent times abandoned these caves and many of these Inyai-Ewa still live in small villages at the feet of these mountains.

The first contact between human groups and Government patrols took place during the decade of the 1960s. In those times the density of this area was of one person for each five squared kilometers. Their main nourishment is the sago flower, a palm tree that grows plentiful in swampy lands and that constitutes the main source of carbohydrates of the area. Other food were obtained by means of the fishing and hunting or by the harvesting of plants that grow in almost a wild state like banana trees, taro, yam, breadfruits, and the vegetation cover was barely damaged when it was visited by these first occidentals.

In 1928 the McGregor Expedition which searched for gold passed by this region and later on the Australian Army during the Second World War performed several expeditions of recognition and later on a Catholic mission established in Yimas. This village was in times previous to European contact, an important center of trade on where the inhabitants of the region of the interior Arafundi exploited their production of sago, sagot pandano worms, tobacco, betel nuts, bat bones, needles and handsaws, as well as bows and arrows, axes and pots made of stone and logs to build canoes. In exchange the Yimas offered them mats, baskets, fish, nacre, lime to chew the betel nuts and clay pots that at the same time they exchanged with the Aibon and Chambri groups of the Sepik. (Foley 1991:13-14, Haberland 1966:57, Roscoe & Telban, 2007). This important role in the past, has been decreased in recent times, nevertheless the villages of Yimas I and Yimas II are still important settlements of the Upper Kariwari.

As a result of these contacts with the Catholic missionaries, and the influence of this mission in the region, ended in wars between the tribes, the hunting of the heads and the cannibalism at the end of the decade of the 60s. As these religious practices were adopted, the process of acculturation increased which has been intensified over the following years with the opening of a primary school, and the migration of their inhabitants and frequent contact with visitors. Their ancient agriculture practices and nourishing also suffered great changes for the introduction of new plants due to the arrival of new nourishments.(Haberland, E. 1966:44)

It is important to notice that apart of these intermittent contacts, few foreigners have explored the Upper Arafundi or the origins of the Kariwari and the Krosmeri river, and the first contacts with the exterior took place in 1968.