The Marind ethno-linguistic culture stands out in several respects. It became infamous
towards the end of the 19th century for well-organized head-hunting raids from its home
territory in Dutch New Guinea to areas around the distant Fly River. This means that
the Marind were cutting off British-administered heads. Complaints to the Dutch
authorities resulted in establishing a Dutch military post at Merauke that stopped the
raids into British territory, and eventually closer to home. Yet, secret, small-scale head hunting continued into the 1950s.
Roman Catholic missionaries of the fraternity of the Sacred Heart arrived to attempt
to evangelize the Marind. Not successful, especially initially, the proselytizers began
studying the complex Marind language and writing Dutch-Marind dictionaries and
eventually a grammar. While the priests were interested in the Marind culture, it took a
trained Swiss anthropologist, Paul Wirz, to study the culture in depth during his 1916
to 1919 field work when he immersed himself totally in the Marind Society and took a
series of excellent photographs some of which illustrate this book.
While the missionaries published their reports of the Marind in Dutch, Wirz printed all
his research only in German. It took a Dutch scholar and administrator, Jan van Baal, to
compile all the available information on the Marind in a huge book called Dema, in the
English language. Most of this current book on the Marind is based on Van Baal great
work, published in 1960.
We have added a few other publications for a better sense of perspective. These include
some essential history of Dutch New Guinea, a text on the history of the Roman
Cathodic Church among the Marind, a study of a pandemic that devastated the Marind
and some information on the most recent travails of this culture.