The Documentation of WOOI
Hesokuru: Peace making ritual
LANGUAGE
Settling in the Dumani, Woinap and Wooi at the western tip of Yapen island in the Geelvink Bay, North of the mainland of Papua, Indonesia.
As an Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, South Halmahera-West New Guinea, South Halmahera-Geelvink Bay, Geelvink Bay, Yapen, Central Western language in the Ethnologue. Approximately 1600 peoples still speak Wooi; the language is claimed to have 77% lexical similarity with neighboring Pom, Marau, and Ansus.
GEOGRAPHY
Google “Serui”, the capital of Yapen island, drive 5 hours westwards along the mangroves of Yapen’s South coast and you reach the tsunami protected harbour of the Wooi bay. The core settlement area of the Wooi lies at 01˚40’ 46.1’’ Southern latitude and 135˚30’ 27.7’’ Eastern longitude, i.e. in Geelvink Bay, North of the mainland of Papua.
The Wooi speaking area borders on Ansus (Aibondeni, Warabori and Ansus villages) and Marau to the East, and Pom and Serewen to the North.
There are two major Wooi villages, which are Wooi and Woinap and one permanent fishery of the Wooi community in Miosnum island to the farther West of the Yapen island. Behind the coastal villages are hills covered by rainforests with an enormous biodiversity.
PEOPLE and CULTURE
Wooi are organized in patrilineal exogamous clans (marga), who descend either from Yapen (i.e. the Wihyawari clan), Wandamen (i.e. the Horota clan), the Bird’s Head (i.e. the Werimon clan) and the neighboring Biak Island (i.e. the Kendi and Kirihio clans). Most Wooi are protestant; however non-Christian beliefs and magic occur. Contact to neighboring groups (Ansus, Pom, Marau) is frequent; Wooi are traditionally fishermen diversifying their subsistence economy also by horticulture and trading sago in the wider island’s maritime transport networks.
The political power in the central settlements is shared by two elected village heads (kepala desa) from the influential clans of the Werimon and Wihyawari. Interethnic warfare was common in colonial times and traditional Wooi songs (Koya) are still orally transmitted today to remember them; of particular ethnological interest is a specific peace-building ritual, Hesokuru, practiced by Wooi to overcome interpersonal disharmony.
