In the rainforests of West Papua...
..there lives a tribe that is one of the most ancient and isolated
cultures on Earth.
The Korowai were not visited by outsiders until around 40 years ago,
when anthropologists and missionaries returned
with stories of cannibalism,
Stone Age tools, and extraordinary houses built in the trees.
Over the years, many documentaries have been made about them...
..offering a snapshot of their lives.
But in this series, I want to try something different.
I want to find a family who will let me film with them
over the course of a whole year.
So that I can better understand the pressures that the Korowai culture
is now under.
Caught between the modern world
and the pull of their traditional way of life.
With so many tribal people around the world
now facing such rapid change,
I want to see how much of this most traditional of cultures
still survives.
They represent something, something that is really important to us.
They are our link to our own pasts,
you know, back when we were all living in the forests
as hunter-gatherers.
They're the last generation of that breed of people
and that's a massive,
massive chapter in human history that's going to come to an end.
This programme contains some strong language
Here she is.
This is West Papua.
It is the western half of the great island of New Guinea.
New Guinea is located, of course, just above Australia.
It's an immense, immense space.
I think it's, sort of, the third largest island in the world.
I've been to West Papua a lot in the last decade,
but, in all of my time in Papua,
I have never yet made it to the Korowai territory.
My name is Will Millard. I'm a writer and expedition leader.
I've been coming to Indonesia for the last ten years,
and have made several anthropological documentaries.
Normally, a producer and a local fixer go out ahead of the crew,
and plan who and what to film in advance.
This time, nothing has been set up.
I don't know where I'm going, or who I will meet,
or even how many Korowai are still living in the traditional way.
But I'm hoping that, if I can find a family who will let me visit them
four times over the course of a year,
I will get closer to them than is normally possible.
And so be better able to understand the pressures that they face
as they're pulled between their traditional way of life
and the modern world.
It's a huge, huge daunting prospect.
Heading off now with, essentially, three boats filled with food,
not really knowing where we're going,
don't know who were going to meet.
I don't know who I'll to end up staying with. I've got no idea.
I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little bit...
..intimidated.
My starting point is Mabul,
a village on the edge of the Korowai territory,
which I've been told is the gateway for expeditions
into the interior.
Mabul?
Yes. Yes, we have made it!
That was quite a long eight hours.
We're here. Amazing.
I was starting to think this place didn't exist, actually.
But this is it.
Mabul is one of the oldest villages in the region.
But with generators, a school, and the arrival of smartphones,
it's already pretty well developed.
Yes. Yes? Yes.
It sounds like there are several villages
where they still live in the trees.
And it sounds like they live in a traditional way.
These guys say that they don't wear clothes so, yes,
it sounds like a start.
I speak Indonesian,
so I have no problems understanding the people in Mabul.
But once we're in the forest,
it's likely the Korowai will only use their own unique language.
So my local producer Shinta is helping me find an interpreter.
Shinta, what's being said?
I think it's, they give me information, like, five hours,
seven hours away from here,
they have family there called Markus.
Really? Yes.
LAUGHTER
As well as Perez,
we've had to hire 18 porters to carry all our food and kit
to Markus's tree house, a five-hour walk away.
Even children are expected by their parents to help earn money.
I feel bad.
It's hard to believe that there are still people
somewhere in this jungle environment in front of us...
..going about their daily business.
And that this...
..this is their pathway.
As far as anyone knows, there are fewer than 4,000 Korowai,
spread out over an area the size of Greater Manchester.
But Perez tells me that, for years,
the government has been encouraging people to leave the forest
and move to villages like Mabul.
So I've no idea what I will find ahead.
A sense of anticipation is building.
My heart is starting to go.
Here we go. There's a clearing.
Really? Yes. That's where Markus lives.
Up there.
SHOUTING
I've been waiting quite a long time to actually see a tree house
in the flesh.
Oh, yeah, Markus.
Brilliant.
Living up to ten metres above predators and the damp forest floor
is one obvious reason for building a tree house.
I've read that life used to be a pretty brutal business
for the Korowai,
so it was also how you defended yourself against other clans.
Let's give it a go.
But apparently, one of the main reasons that they stay in the trees
is their belief that witches and zombies occupy the forest floor,
spreading death and disease.
There is not an enormous amount in here.
A few bones.
Oh, yeah?
Ah, yeah, of course.
It might seem reckless,
having a fire in a wooden house ten metres up a tree,
but Markus is using a traditional Korowai fire pit
that can be cut loose and drop to the ground
if things get out of hand.
But it looks like some things have changed.
Cigarette lighter and plastic.
Markus lives in the treehouse with his two wives and five kids.
Nearby, there are some abandoned huts that are perfect for me
and the crew, and our team of porters.
HE SINGS
And, as soon as we've settled in,
he announces that it's time to go hunting.
Whoa, it's biting me!
Oh, my God, look at the jaws on that. That is disgusting!
OK. Bite, bite.
Just eat it.
That's all right.
That's actually really nice!
Tastes like custard.
Oh, my God.
OK, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God!
Hey!
It's working.
I can hear it eating.
Oh, fucking hell!
Oh, Jesus Christ!
It's coming back out.
It's coming out. It's come out.
It's coming out, it's coming out.
Look at all that! Look!
It's full of ear wax.
Ayeee!
SNIGGERING
Got it!
Wow!
Back at our camp next to Markus's tree house,
I get to meet his wives and children.
I assumed this family spent all their time in the forest,
but I'm struck by how remarkably unfazed they are
by the outside world.
THEY LAUGH
Life out here is clearly changing faster than I thought,
but the warmth of their welcome
means that this already feels like it could be the family
I'd like to get to know over the coming year.
HE SINGS
The next morning, Markus says he wants to introduce me
to his neighbours, a two-hour walk through the forest.
We've been going for an hour.
I'm absolutely knackered.
Covered in sweat.
And this is just to get to Markus's closest neighbours.
These aren't his family.
This is next door!
Ah, right. Just for us.
He wants you to take his photo.
So big!
I can't quite put my finger on it,
but something doesn't feel right about this tree house.
It doesn't look like it's been lived in for years,
and everyone seems terrified
that we're going to drop through the rotting floor.
Right, so that's why they're worried how many people come up here
and that we might fall through the floor. This is not where they live.
This is total artifice.
Most Korowai tree houses, like the one Markus lives in,
are up to ten metres high.
It turns out these very high ones,
30 metres or more off the ground,
were built for foreigners.
The most impressive one in this area has been built by Markus himself.
Whoa!
That is something else!
He does know that his cigarettes aren't dependent on this.
This is completely... You know, he doesn't have to do this.
Oh, for God's sake!
Don't look down, mate. Don't look down.
Oh, my God!
OK.
This is unbelievably terrifying.
And, you know, the thing is... The thing is this.
This has got nothing to do with the Korowai people.
Can you ask him?
It is amazing up here. I mean, it is just stunning.
But, it's... It's not real.
I mean, it is real, inasmuch as it's here.
But, this place has been built by my people,
for the purposes of telling stories about theirs.
It turns out that it is not just the Korowai in this area
who have built tall tree houses for film crews.
There are many others scattered throughout the forest.
From Tarzan to Peter Pan, the idea of living in very tall tree houses
recurs in children's stories.
And it is enchanting to imagine
that there is a place where it is actually happening.
There's no doubt that the Korowai do sometimes build tree houses
very high up.
To look at the beautiful views, or to show off.
But they rarely, if ever, live so dangerously high in the tree tops.
'Parents are surprisingly relaxed as their children
'explore their limits in the new home.'
Yet that is the story we all want to hear.
And it now appears that some of the more entrepreneurial Korowai
have cleverly learned to deliver
exactly what their foreign guests expect to see.
In fact, in the area around Mabul,
it is becoming clear that they have built an entire economy
around selling Brand Korowai
to rich tourists and television crews.
SHOUTING
Markus's neighbour has been greeting tourists
with this amazing performance for years.
WILL LAUGHS NERVOUSLY
You could argue that people like him are keeping aspects
of Korowai traditional culture alive.
He now spends lots of the time in the village at Mabul,
and, as he joins the cash economy,
who can blame him for wanting to earn money
from the attention that his traditional lifestyle brings?
But all this performance is making this area feel
more like a theme park than a real village.
It's a bit like trying to understand the English
if you've only seen Morris dancing and fish and chips.
I don't think I've ever had a mirror put in front of my face
quite so brutally as I have here in the last few days.
Where I've actually been made to look at myself,
especially as a television presenter and be like, you know what?
Look around you, mate, you made this.
It turns out that Markus and his family
also spend a lot of their time in Mabul,
and only came out to their treehouse
when they heard I was looking for somewhere to film.
Although he doesn't charge for individual activities,
he has a daily rate of about £15 for each Westerner that stays with him.
I've been invited to dinner.
And it looks like we have three rats.
Wow!
It smells good!
Where to start?
That's his foot. That's his foot.
Oh, got one of his bollocks as well.
That's... That's nice.
Yeah!
There's nothing wrong with that at all.
It tastes...a bit porky.
Markus?
That's its balls.
The dream that they've created here is ideal.
All that they've tried to do is provide people like me
with the experience that they actually want.
And it would be so, so much easier if I just succumbed to it
and said, you know what?
Give me the gourd, I'm going to live in the tree house.
We'll do the tribal thing, we'll do the scenes.
It'll be easier for them, it'll be easier for me and I suspect,
you know, for the people back home, it'll be easier for them too.
Because that's what they want to watch. You know?
Everyone's a winner!
Yet here I am, sort of sat on the log thinking...
Yeah, but, you're not telling the truth, are you? You know?
You're not telling the whole truth.
HE COUNTS OUT LOUD
I feel very conflicted.
I've come to West Papua to find a traditional Korowai family
to spend a year with, in order to explore how well they're adapting
to the modern world.
But everywhere I look, the modern world has already taken over.
Part of me thinks I should just stay here in Mabul, and accept
that most Korowai today live in tin hut villages like this.
But at the same time,
I've just been told that there's somewhere further upstream
where people might still be living in the old way.
And now that I've come so far, I don't feel I can pass by this
chance to find out if anyone still lives the ancient Korowai lifestyle.
But to get there, I'm going to have to pass through Muara,
a remote village with a reputation for hostility toward outsiders.
There's definitely a change in atmosphere
amongst the guys today, you know?
People are feeling a bit anxious, a bit low on confidence,
because this is the unknown.
Only three members of our group have actually been any further upriver
than we're about to go.
And none of them had a good experience, so...
Yeah, I don't quite know what to expect, really.
It's only couple of hours to Muara,
but, apparently, it's very different to Mabul.
The Korowai here only recently left the forest,
and the village is barely three years old.
We're here. This is it.
Wasn't so bad.
It's little more than a collection of huts.
But, despite its reputation, it doesn't feel hostile.
I don't understand like, last night, all of this drama...
Yeah. You know, about everything.
And now we're here, it just doesn't seem... Are we in the right place?
Like, why are we here?
This is... This is the village that's near to Muara.
Right. Yeah. So that, that is the place they were worried about?
It is the place, yeah.
Er, slightly unexpected.
Perez is saying we should wait now for the head man to arrive,
and question that person properly.
We're running out of time.
We haven't got much time left on our visas, we'll get one chance.
If we get it wrong, there is no other chance.
If we get there and there's no people, I can live with that,
that's fine,
because that's it, that's the story, they're not there any more.
But I want to be sure.
We can't carry all our equipment ourselves.
The £10 a day we are paying for porters will be the only cash
some of them will see all year.
But no-one wants to cross into White-beard's land
without someone who knows the family,
so we've hired Dupen,
one of the heads of the village, to lead us there.
This forest is massive. Huge trees.
It's already a step up from Mabul.
Incredible primary rainforest.
A couple of years' time,
this forest is just going to swallow this part.
And the people that are still living in the forest
are going to be cut off completely.
Just counted, there is 41 people with us.
We employed 15.
I guess what must have happened
is everybody just tacked on as we left the village.
It's just dawning on me now, perhaps a bit too late,
that turning up with this many people
might not be the best of ideas, really.
I think if I've chosen to be,
chosen to isolate myself to this extent,
I probably wouldn't want half of the village turning up on my doorstep
with a bunch of white people.
I'm in it now, committed.
We're nearly there.
Here we are.
Hey.
I need to leave my bags here and go up there on my own.
I can see a man with a white beard.
OK.
This is crazy.
Just taking off my boots.
OK.
The white beard.
No-one speaks Indonesian.
I know one word of Korowai.
HE SPEAKS TO THEM
Thank you.
I'm so pleased to see these guys.
Incredible.
THEY SPEAK KOROWAI
WILL SNORTS LIKE A PIG
WILL SNORTS AGAIN
Oh, my God.
What a place.
Wow!
Perez, can you help me translate?
I'd expected to find one old man living in the forest like a hermit,
but White-beard's whole family are staying in this tree house,
which feels very lived in,
and quite unlike the other tree houses I've seen so far.
OK, I've figured out who's related to who.
White-beard and Alp are brothers.
And when August was very young, he lost both of his parents
so they brought up August.
This is August's wife.
These are August's sons,
and then she is Alp's daughter.
Oh, my God.
That was unbelievable.
I have never, in all my time in Papua, seen anything like this.
That's incredible.
While I've been talking to White-beard and his family,
the porters have started constructing a camp.
I'm in a really difficult situation.
I've only just met this family, and I want to take things slowly,
but everyone else is rushing ahead.
It's all a bit of a disaster, basically.
40 people ended up following us into the forest.
And I knew it was going to be a problem,
and, really, I'm annoyed at myself.
We should have just said, "Stop now, go back."
But we didn't, and now we've come out here,
I thought the guys would just be happy to turn around and walk back.
I feel like I've finally found the traditional family
I've been looking for, but the modern world has come with me,
and it's difficult to control.
OK, well, that's a good start, you're not angry. OK.
Oh, Jesus.
Until recently, the Korowai of Muara lived as isolated families
spread out across the forest in a society without leaders.
They still find the idea of being told what to do insulting.
I didn't realise at the time that asking them to leave
only made them more determined to stay.
Part of me feels, you know, like this experience
is already irreparably broken,
and, you know, I may as well be in a 40 metre-high
tree house built for television.
Literally, I may as well be, you know?
In many respects, a 40-metre tree house with just me on my own
with a camera for the night is going to be more meaningful
than being here with people that are genuinely living in the forest,
but with 40-odd people on their doorstep, you know?
The situation, we have completely changed this place.
This is... We are the amusement park.
We've brought it with us, you know?
We have brought the caravan to this place.
The right thing to do is to see what happens tomorrow,
and if nothing changes, than we're just going to have to leave.
But next morning, without needing to say anything,
half of the village has left for home.
Hey, August.
I feel I owe White-beard and his family an apology.
We can see, you've broken your shoulders across here.
It's amazing you can use your arms, actually.
August has just been saying that the reason why he continues to live here
in this house is because he feels a moral debt, a debt of obligation
to White-beard for everything that he's done for him,
bringing him up, and saving him when he lost both of his parents
so if what they say is true,
and this genuinely is the last tree house in this area,
then this very much represents the last stand for this way of life.
Almost by accident, I've walked into an amazing story.
There are three generations of Korowai people in the tree house
and they are living through a moment in history.
These are the last of the old generation existing in the forest.
But it's obvious that August wants to move his family to the village.
This is the Korowai of today,
living between two worlds.
I think that this is the place that I would want to spend my year.
This feels right.
I've made mistakes, and they've been pretty glaringly obvious,
and I think I can make some changes and I can come back here
and it will be different
and I will have an opportunity to get closer to this family.
August.
But even here, as I was to find out over the course of the next year,
all is not quite what it seems.
When I return to Papua,
my idea of what traditional culture is turned on its head...again.
August.
Everybody's wearing clothes.
What is going on? What's going on?
There's a woman over there who's given birth on her own
in the forest, cut her own umbilical cord.
This is the Korowai, this is how it is.