The Raja Ampat, or "Four Kings," archipelago encompasses more than 9.8 million acres of land and sea off the northwestern tip of Indonesia’s West Papua Province. Located in the Coral Triangle, the heart of the world’s coral reef biodiversity, the seas around Raja Ampat possibly hold the richest variety of species in the world.
Four large islands of Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati, and Misool, plus hundreds of smaller islands area known as the Bird’s Head functional seascape, which also contains Cenderawasih Bay, the largest marine national park in Indonesia.
Located off the northwest tip of Bird’s Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, Raja Ampat, or the Four Kings, is an archipelago comprising over 1,500 small islands and encompasses more than 9.8 million acres (40,000 km²) of land and sea.
If you want to get married Dani country you have to have the pigs to do it. Usually a wife costs around 4-6 pigs depending on the size of the pigs and the quality of the woman. Now, 4-6 pigs isn't cheap, but the good news is if your lucky enough to have acquired many pigs, you can buy many wives! If you're a woman, uh...well, you can't really buy a husband. It just doesn't work that way.
This might sound like a loveless sort of affair, and we pondered about the relationships between husband and wife over in the grass hut villages and could only decide that life was way too different to make a comparison. But on the third day of our trek a short interaction with a passing group of men gave us a little insight. After some obligatory greetings and handshakes they began explaining where they were coming from and why. This group of men had gone to the village of Sikosimo on behalf of their friend/relative where one of his wives had run off to. She was living with another man! Total love triangle. So the group of men we were talking to, who were all holding axes or machetes, had gone to Sikosimo to demand a payment of 6 pigs in retribution for the pigs their friend/relative had paid to marry the woman. Sounds more or less fair...Right? Our guide John, however, didn't think that they'd get the full allotment of six pigs. He figured there would have to be some negotiation. But what if negotiations fail, we asked. "Well then, the villages will fight."
