The Swagap tribe belong to the indigenous tribes of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. They are also known as the Insect Tribe. They speak the

Nggala language Ngala, or Sogap, is one of the Ndu languages of Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in the single village of Swagap () in Ambunti Rural LLG of East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capi ...

(also called Swagap or Sogap), which is one of the

Sepik languages The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have ...

belonging to the Ndu branch.

Homelife

The tribe lives in a village that sits above the waters of the

Sepik River The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Sepi ...

, named Sawagap. The tribe live off fish and other animals that they hunt in the jungle, but their chief source of income comes from

crocodile skin Crocodile skin either refers to the skin of a live crocodile or a leather made from dead crocodile hide. It has multiple applications across the fashion industry such as use for bags, shoes, and upholstery after being farmed and treated in spec ...

Religious beliefs

They worship the

praying mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

Discovery and outside contact

They were unknown to the outside world until the 1950s. More recently, they were the subject of a documentary by

Donal MacIntyre Donal MacIntyre (born 25 January 1966) is an Irish investigative journalist, specialising in investigations, undercover operations and television exposés. He has also worked as a presenter of both television news and documentaries on various U ...

in 2007, in which six members of the tribe, including their chief, Joseph, were flown to London as part of the special ''Return of the Tribe''.

Homelife

Religious beliefs

Discovery and outside contact

Sources

Further reading