HOSE SUBANG & PENGHUNI ALAM LAINNYA
Title Translation: HOSE SUBANG & OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE REALM — Folk Prose of the Auyu Busahang Subtribe
Author: Casper Aliandu
Publication Date: November 2020
ISBN: 9 786239 517816
A “folktale” is usually something people of all ages can read, but this particular book presents folktales intended for adults — which is why the stories here are referred to with a new term: folk prose. Hose Subang is a collection of folk prose containing material meant for adult readers, such as cannibalism or anthropophagy. In the Introduction, Casper writes that “with a heavy heart, there are stories I still chose to include because they are part of the people’s historical journey and civilization — namely, the stories of humans eating humans. In that era, such practices were tied to belief systems. They were thought to grant increased magical or supernatural power, or pakatan, as well as strength in intertribal warfare.”
HOSE SUBANG is a work of folk prose that serves as an important document of the oral narratives passed down for thousands of years by the Auyu Busahang subtribe in Mappi Regency, Papua. Elders, grandparents, and members of local customary institutions have long worried these stories would vanish if not written down, especially with the arrival of modern times. Casper Aliandu, the author, collected these tales from the traditional elders and elderly storytellers who still remember them — people who to this day continue to live side by side with the forests they know intimately.
