The Korowai people

 The Korowai people

The Korowai people live in Southeastern Papua in the island of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world.They were discovered in 1974.

The Korowai were unaware of the existence of any other people on earth other than themselves.

They live high above the ground on trees and practiced cannibalism, some reports state that they still practice ritual cannibalism .

Cannibalism

The Korowai practice cannibalistic rituals when someone is convicted of being a “khakhua”, which is a witch doctor. They believe Khakhua comes always disguised as a “friend or a relative” to the person khakhua wants to kills. These people believe that the khakhua eats the inside of the victim while the victim sleeps. The khakhua replaces the inside of the victim with ash, and then the victim don't have the ability to find out he is being eaten. He then shoots a magical arrow to the victim’s heart and kills him.

They believe that dying relatives always whisper the name of the khakhua before they pass on. The friends, family and members of the clan the dead victim belonged to would seize the person accused to be the khakhua, they would kill him/ her and eat the flesh.