TO ACCOMPANY FEATURE INDONESIA PAPUA MODERNISATION, 2003-08-25 (photo)

A Papuan man of the Dani tribe carries a huge pig on his shoulder in outskirt of Wamena in Indonesia's remote Papua province, August 25, 2003 that has just been killed with a bow and arrow as part of a festival to mark the inauguration of a new Catholic church. Around 2,000 tribespeople gathered for the feast, slaughtering around 100 pigs, in the village of Hebuba in Papua's highland region of the Baliem Valley, a lush piece of real estate hidden from the world until an American explorer discovered it in 1938. The festival shows that some customs of the Dani people - in this case a pig feast - are still alive, although they have had to fight the forces of Christian missionaries and a government bent on modernisation. What has largely disappeared is the warring among clans and the taking of heads in the largely Christian and animist province.TO ACCOMPANY FEATURE INDONESIA PAPUA MODERNISATION REUTERS/Beawiharta DY/PB