Yali: The cannibal tribe that ate their enemies after a fight
The word 'Yali' does not actually refer to a particular tribe or its cultural identity, but it only means people from the East
The Yali tribe is the main tribal group in Papua, Indonesia, living to the east of the Baliem valley in the Papua mountains.
One important factor helping the Yali to preserve their tribal way of life is the isolation of their lands mainly from difficult geography. Their villages can only be reached for several hours on rugged terrain
Until the 1960s they had no contact with the outside world and still live in a sovereign region ruled by Indonesia.
Most people who only learned of Yali were cannibals. The way of fearing other tribes was, however, practiced cannibalism.
Yali are primarily vegetarians, just in celebration they eat pigs. But they were still targeted in the old days and took captives away from their enemy tribes.
In the celebrations, the inmates were then chopped and eaten. These prisoner's bones would be ground, mixed with dust later and threatened into the valley of the enemy tribe.
The term Dani for 'Eastern lands' means 'yali' from where the Yalis have taken it, without it being their tribe's self-identification.