![Kurulu Village War Chief](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Kurulu_Village_War_Chief.jpg)
The Baliem Valley ( id, Lembah Baliem; also spelled Balim and sometimes known as the Grand Valley) is a valley of the
Central Highlands in
Western New Guinea
Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...
. Specifically in
Highland Papua
Highland Papua ( id, Papua Pegunungan) is a province of Indonesia, which roughly follows the borders of Papuan customary region of Lano-Pago, shortened to La Pago. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,408,641 according to the official es ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, which is inhabited mainly by the
Dani people. The main town in the valley is
Wamena
Wamena is a town and the capital of the Indonesian province of Highland Papua. It also serves as the seat of Jayawijaya Regency. It is the largest town in Indonesian Papua's highlands, in the Baliem Valley and had a population of 64,967 at the ...
, which lies on the
Baliem River
The Baliem River (or Vriendschaps River) is a river in the Highland Papua and South Papua provinces of Western New Guinea, Indonesia. It is the largest tributary of the Pulau River, formerly called the Eilanden River. With a total length of .
Hy ...
. The valley is about 80 km in length by 20 km in width and lies at an altitude of about , with a population of over 200,000.
The discovery of the Baliem Valley to the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. and the unexpected presence of its large agricultural population was made by
Richard Archbold
Richard Archbold (April 9, 1907 – August 1, 1976) was an American zoologist and philanthropist. He was independently wealthy, being the grandson of the capitalist John Dustin Archbold. He was educated at private schools, and later attended cla ...
’s third zoological expedition to New Guinea in 1938. On 21 June an aerial reconnaissance flight southwards from Hollandia (now
Jayapura) found what the expedition called the "Grand Valley". Since then the valley has gradually been opened up to a limited amount of tourism, with Baliem Valley Festival (''Festival Lembah Baliem'') as a main tourist event.
The following is copied from the back cover of
Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA Operative. A co-founder of the literary magazine ''The Paris Review'', he was the only writer to have won the Nation ...
’s book ''Under the Mountain Wall'':
In the Baliem Valley in Central New Guinea live the Kurelu, a Stone Age tribe that survived into the twentieth century. Peter Matthiessen visited the Kurelu with the Harvard-Peabody Expedition in 1961 and wrote ''Under the Mountain Wall'' as an account not of the expedition, but of the great warrior Weaklekek, the swineherd Tukum, U-mue and his family, and the boy Weake, killed in a surprise raid. Matthiessen observes these people in their timeless rhythm of work and play and war, of gardening and wood gathering, feasts and funerals, pig stealing and ambush.
Airplane crash
The valley was the site of the
Gremlin Special airplane crash in 1945, which received a great deal of publicity at the time. In 2011, a book about the crash and rescue entitled ''
Lost in Shangri-La
''Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II'' is a 2011 non-fiction book by American author Mitchell Zuckoff about a US military airplane called "The Gremlin Special", which ...
'' was published.
See also
*
Balim Valley languages
The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the Baliem Valley in the highlands of Papua Province, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their TNG status ...
External links
Photos from the Baliem ValleyStory and Photos from Baliem ValleyBaliem Valley Festival
Valleys of Indonesia
Landforms of Western New Guinea
Landforms of Highland Papua
{{HPapua-geo-stub