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village life: Danis live in villages with U-shaped courtyards. Straw-thatched dome-roofed family dwellings are grouped around the open space. A typical settlement has a surrounding wall to keep in livestock and long tunnel-like connecting passages between houses to avoid moving outdoors on cold nights. Nearby are taro, tobacco and banana gardens. Gourd vines grow under the roofs. Dani buildings are held together with only rattan vines or elephant grass (logob). Roofs are made of the bark of the juniper tree or hard leaves of the pandanus palm which are interlocked into each other like roof tiles, making the structures virtually waterproof and windproof. A village contains a ritual mens' house (iwool) which only the initiated may enter. The round grass mens' house (honnay) is used for sleeping naked at night, all feet pointed towards the fire. A small door, which gives the only light, is closed with heavy wooden slats. The honnay are designated for all men and boys over 8 years old. The women, children, and pigs live in the long womens' houses (wew umah). Inside, heated rocks are placed around to sit on. Dani babies aren't weaned until 4 or 5 years old and during all that time on the breast a man may not sleep with his wife. Polygamy is thought to have evolved because of this custom. Until they get married, Dani girls wear grass skirts as are found in the Pacific islands. When a man buys a wife the bridegroom's village drapes the bride with a married womens' skirt made of seeds strung together. This skirt is worn just below the abdomen and held in place by callouses on her thighs. Though her breasts are exposed, her buttocks is always scrupulously covered. She also wears a long warmth-giving net bag around her head and down her back. Babies, piglets, belongings, and food are all caned together in it. There are no regular eating times, the Danis eat when they are hungry. Steamed or roasted sweet potatoes are 90% of their diet, eaten skin and all at least twice a day. Danis eat almost anything else they can lay their hands on; roots, dragonfly larvae, mice, raw tadpoles, frogs, caterpillars, spiny anteater and other marsupials' entrails. Slaughter by tying them to a stake and shooting them with arrows, pigs' flesh is eaten with vegetables cooked in the ground in big pits covered by hot stones and steaming grass. Pig is eaten only on festival occasions such as mass marriages (a gigantic pig banquet will be held in the Baliem in 1982). Try to get in on one of these pig feasts which usually coincide with the ripening of taro roots which are served with the steamed pork. Danis smash bones with rocks to get at the marrow, suck flesh from the jaws, nibble at vertebrae, gnaw at the kidneys- the whole pig vanishes. No knives or forks or cooking vessels are used, just round water gourds. Spoons are made out of the pelvis bones of pigs. Malaria is treated with pigs' blood. The word for pigs' fat may pot be pronounced in the presence of women; it's a man's prerogative. A Dani man's status is reckoned by how many pigs and wives he owns. Pigs take their rightful place around the fire and human babies must compete with hungry piglets for mother's milk. death: After a death the whole village is crying. Women smear their upper bodies and faces with mud to show their grief. Female relatives of the dead, starting at 12-13 years old, once had their fingers amputated up to the 2nd joint. The wound was dressed in banana leaves and husks and bound with a mixture of clay and ashes. It was then proudly displayed around the village. Though this practice is prohibited now, you'll notice many fingerless women over 25 years old.