Robert Moor travels to Papua to visit Korowai tree houses, tracing a childhood National Geographic obsession into questions about freedom, community, and wild co-flourishing.
Key Takeaways
The Korowai of Papua build homes 100+ feet up in ironwood trees, originally to evade sorcerers and see the surrounding landscape.
Moor contrasts Rousseau’s solitary freedom with the Korowai model: freedom sustained through deep mutual bonds to family, forest, and shared resources.
Western accounts of remote peoples, from ancient Greeks to modern documentaries, consistently fixated on cannibalism while flattening everything else about their culture.
The Korowai practiced ritual cannibalism tied to belief in xaxua witches who steal organs; the practice is far more complex than documentary titles like “Last Cannibals” suggest.
The journey required three flights, a pickup truck, a two-day pirogue river trip, and a half-day jungle hike to reach the Korowai.
