Hatam

The Hatam are one of four Arfak sub-groups, in the Arfak Mountains at the eastern end of New Guinea's Bird's Head Peninsula, around Warmare and Anggi lakes behind Manokwari. Their traditions divide them into the Moile, Tinam and Urwam groups.

They speak Hatam, a divergent Papuan tongue usually treated as an isolate, close to the Mansim speech of the Borai. Like other Arfak groups, they are swidden farmers, hunters and gatherers in stilt houses called igmam, fighting with bow and arrow.

The highlands enter history through the coast: from the fifteenth century Dore Bay traded with Moluccan and Malay merchants, a Portuguese ship passed in 1526, and from the sixteenth the Bird's Head fell under Tidore's loose overlordship. The mountains never faced direct coastal rule; when the British built Fort Coronation on Dore Bay between 1793 and 1795, highland clans kept their speech and customs beyond it.