Dani people
A Dani war chief of Kurulu Village in Baliem Valley, Papua (Indonesian province).
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (Approximately 25,000 (2009)) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Papua (Indonesian province) | |
| Languages | |
| Dani languages | |
| Religion | |
| Protestant Christian (predominantly), Islam, Animism, Dynamism (metaphysics), Totemism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Damal people, Yali people, Lani people, Moni people |
The Dani people, also spelled Ndani, and sometimes conflated with the Lani group to the west, are a people from the central highlands of western New Guinea (the Indonesian province of Papua).
They are one of the most populous tribes in the highlands, and are found spread out through the highlands. The Dani are one of the most well-known ethnic groups in Papua, due to the relatively numerous tourists who visit the Baliem Valley area where they predominate. "Ndani" is the name given to the Baliem Valley people by the Moni people, and, while they don't call themselves Dani, they have been known as such since the 1926 Smithsonian Institution-Dutch Colonial Government expedition to New Guinea under Matthew Stirling who visited the Moni.
Linguists identify at least four sub-groupings of Dani languages:
The Dani languages differentiate only two basic colours, mili for cool/dark shades such as blue, green, and black, and mola for warm/light colours such as red, yellow, and white. This trait makes it an interesting field of research for language psychologists, e.g. Eleanor Rosch, eager to know whether there is a link between way of thought and language.
A small fringe group of the Dani, living south of Puncak Trikora and presenting themselves as the Pesegem and the Horip tribes, were met on October 29, 1909, by the Second South New Guinea Expedition led by Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz, who stayed several nights in their village. First contact with the populous Western Dani was made in October 1920 during the Central New Guinea Expedition, which group of explorers stayed for six months with them at their farms in the upper Swart River Valley (now Toli Valley). The Grand Valley Dani were only sighted in the summer of 1938 from an airplane by Richard Archbold.
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Wikipedia