Stone Cooking Tradition- Papuan’s BBQ

Papua is an exotic region with abundant resources located in the eastern region of Indonesia . The diversity of traditions and culture of the people has not been exposed to the outside world because of geographic location that far away from Jakarta make transportation is a rarity and luxury . This complicates access to visit it because it requires huge amount of money  if we want to reach the region from  the western part of Indonesia . This factor makes the region remains relatively isolated in addition to the natural contours and linguistic diversity of each tribe also be another limiting factor .

One of the largest and well-known tribe in Papua is the Dani tribe , this tribe occupied the Baliem Valley area, a  hilly area with fertile soil.  The Dani have rich tradition , especially the tradition of carving , the carves made by  this tribe has been well known all over the world , especially for anthropologies society.

Another  famous tradition is their stone cooking tradition.  Stone cooking  is the way of Dani tribe and other tribes to prepare special meal for special ceremonies or regular get-togethers .
They distinguish stone cooking event   for special ceremonies :  such as death , marriage , peace agreement  among tribes who just had just tribal war . While the non- ritual stone cooking is for regular family gatherings .

They distinguish the cooking area, the number of people  involved on cooking and some tradisional ornaments are required for  this special occasion. For example, in a funeral ceremony , close relatives are required to bring a wam (wild boar),  or if it is available they can replace it with tobacco , cigarettes , salt or some trivial items for us but hard to get there such as sugar, sweets, biscuit etc. The cooking place for  ceremonies should be special  , if  daily stone cooking can be done in the back of  hunila (Papuan’s house ), then for a special ceremony it should be performed  in Silimo ( a field flanked by hunila and honai ) can also be done in larger open area  if it involves more  people and tribes.

The hole that prepared to perform cooking ritual has  stringent rules , the diameter of the hole should be 2 meters or more  so it is enough to stocked  some  wam ( wild boar ) , hipere ( sweet potato) , as well as vegetables , and only lukata and  Lokop leaves  used for coating . In this special event Tribal chief should kill the boar using an arrow. Before  hands a group of man will set up a pile of wood for burning stones of melons size  to be heated on its  pile, burns for approximately 4 hours . Once the wood becoming  ashes, stones will be  extremely hot . The hot stones are then compiled into a hole measuring 2 meters ( or smaller hole for casual get together )  using  bamboo or stem of sago. The women will take Lokop leaf to cover the entire surface of the stone , then  hipere ( sweet potatoes ) , wam ( wild boar ) , vegetables such as cassava leaves and papaya leaves will be fed with corn and then coated again with a pile of  Lokop leaves and banana leaves after  big amount  of  salt . At the very top layer of some more heated stones  they piled soils to lock heat and vapor . It can take up to an hour to burn all the food under ground  for the results. In the end the rituals accepted   by the ancestors if the meal well cooked, meaning  everything should be fine  . But if there are some parts of the meals still raw or uncooked that should be a sign that something has gone wrong and they must evaluating their way of live.

After long waiting time the foods cooked , they unload stone then serve the food on a piece of banana leaf . Tribal Chiefs will get the best cuts of boar, then all members of the tribe will start the meal with delight

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Source of photo : www. fotokita.com
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     References    : Kompas Minggu